











+ ^: 









THE LIFE AND WORKS OF GOTTHOLD 
EPHRAIM LESSING. From the German of Adolf 
Stahr. By E. P. Evans, Ph.D., Late Professor of Modern 
Languages and Literature in the University of Michigan. 2 
vols. 8vo, $5.00. 

" A work of permanent value. It is the best of the many books which 
have been written and compiled for the purpose of portraying the char- 
acter and career of one of the most illustrious scholars and thinkers that 
even Germany has ever produced. It combines judicious selection with 
ample information, criticism with narration, and presents, with compara- 
tive brevity, an outline of labors, the benefits of which the world is now 
enjoying in almost every department of learning and culture." — Nation. 



HENRY HOLT 



CO., Publishers, N. Y. 



Nathan the Wise 

/3I8" 

A Dramatic Poem by 
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LeSSING 

Translated by 
Ellen Frothingham 



Preceded by a brief account of the Poet and his works, 

and followed by Kuno Fischer's 

Essay on the Poem 

THIRD EDITION, REVISED 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1873. 



.** 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S67, 

liY LEYPOLDT & HOLT, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Southern District of New York, 

By Transfer 
JUN 5 1907 



Chas. E. Wilbour, Printer, 

20S-2H EA'iT T2TH St., NEW YORK. 



Publishers' Notice 

To the First Edition. 

Nathan the Wise is the third of a uniform series 
of great foreign poems which the publishers have 
lately begun to issue. The first one was King 
Rene's Daughter, from the Danish, which is now 
in the second edition. It was followed by Frithiof's 
Saga, the national epic of Sweden, edited by Bayard 
Taylor. The fourth of the series, Selections from 
the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland, trans- 
lated from a close German version by the late Pro- 
fessor John A. Porter, of Yale College, will be ready 
for publication a few days after the issue of the 
present volume. Others will be added as rapidly 
as the public appreciation may warrant. Among 
those in contemplation are Calderon's Life is a 
Dream ; Tasso's Aminta, translated by Leigh Hunt ; 
The Wooing of the King's Daughter, from the 
Norwegian of Muench ; Boris Godounoff, from 
the Russian of Pouschkine ; Nala and Damajanti, 



iv PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. 

translated from the Sanscrit by Milman ; a transla- 
tion of Bodenstedt's version of the Turkish songs 
of Mirza Schaffy, and an English version of the 
Sakoontala. 

With the exception of Goethe's Faust, there is no 
poem in German literature which has received so 
much special study as Nathan the Wise, or which 
has so well rewarded it. Probably the best critical 
monograph which it has generated is the essay by 
Kuno Fischer. This has been translated by the 
translator of the poem, pruned of some of its Ger- 
man redundancy, and put into a form better suited 
than the original one, to the Anglo-Saxon require- 
ments of terseness and directness. The modified 
Version will be found at the end of this volume. 









W 



Sketch of Lessing. 



" If God held all truth shut in his right hand, 
and in his left nothing but the ever-restless instinct 
for truth, though with the condition of for ever 
and ever erring, and should say to me, Choose ! I 
would bow reverently to his left hand, and say, 
Father, give ! Pure truth is for Thee alone \" 

Two years ago, it would have been safe to say 
that a vague recollection of having somewhere seen 
a sentence like the one we have quoted, was all the 
knowledge of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing possessed 
by the majority of educated Americans. Of course 
there are men who have long known and appre- 
ciated him ; but the number of such is surprisingly 
small. He has not had one reader where Goethe, 
or Schiller, or Jean Paul, has had a hundred. The 
only one of his works yet published in this country 
is Minna von Barnhelm — surely not his most char- 
acteristic production — and this was reprinted by a 



VI SKETCH OF LESSING. 

publisher of school-books from an English edition 
adapted for the use of students of German. It is 
but a year since Mr. Spencer published Professor 
Evans' excellent translation of Stahr's Life of Les- 
sing. The ' criticisms ' which the volume received, 
clearly displayed the ignorance existing in regard to 
its subject. Among the few notable exceptions were 
a short notice in the Nation, and an article in the 
North American Review for April, 1867, by Professor 
Lowell, in which he gave an admirable sketch of 
Lessing's life and character. A 'Review/ pub- 
lished in New York, contained an ' essay, ' the first 
half of which was translated from the Nouvelle Bio- 
graphie Generate, and the other half taken from Ap- 
pleton's Cyclopcedia. As far as we have been able to 
learn, the American press has supplied little more 
than these meagre materials for a knowledge of that 
great and unique man. 

The neglect that he has received cannot be ac- 
counted for by any proportionate inferiority to his 
better known countrymen. He was the generator 
of modern German literature, and it is not on the 
partly accidental position of a pioneer that his 
claims rest. He had a greatness of his own, whose 
half prophetic character does much to explain 
the neglect which has fallen upon it. The hack- 
neyed term, "in advance of his age," has a very 
deep significance when applied to him. But we are 
beginning to catch up with him, and the peculiar 



SKETCH OF LESSIXG. Vll 

progress of our people has already made them 
specially, fitted for his teachings. 

For a knowledge of the poet and his other works, 
we recommend the sources already named. We 
have gleaned from them, for the benefit of readers 
unwise enough to slight this recommendation, the 
facts embodied in the following sketch. 

On the 2 2d of January, 1729, Deacon, afterward 
Pastor Primarius, John Gottfried Lessing, of Ka- 
menz, in Upper Lusatia, rejoiced, it is to be sup- 
posed, over the birth of his eldest son. The little 
Lessing began life with a line of ancestors at his 
back who, through scholarly attainments and lib- 
eral ideas, legitimately gave him the power which 
afterward made him great. For half-a-dozen gen- 
erations, his family had been one of jurists, curates, 
and burgomasters. His grandfather's thesis, on 
taking his degree of Doctor of Laws, was, "De 
Religionum Tokra?itia." Added to the boy's other 
'inherited conditions/ was a fine physical consti- 
tution. 

When Lessing was about twelve years old, the 
rector of the Kamenz public school, where Lessing 
went, published an article defending the theme that 
"The Stage is a School of Eloquence." This 
brought all the big-wigs of the town down upon 
him. Pastor Primarius Lessing assailed his prin- 
ciples in the pulpit, and at last he had to leave the 
place. A friend of his — Mylius by name, whom 



VI 11 SKETCH OF LESSING. 

we shall meet again — wrote a satirical poem on 
the circumstance, in consequence of which he was 
imprisoned, forced to apologize, and fined. This 
affair probably presented the Stage for the first 
time to the notice of the future founder of the 
German drama. The immediate effect was, that 
he had to go to another school — that of St. Afra, 
established by the Elector Maurice of Saxony, in 
Meissen. On the 21st of June, 1841, a festival was 
held at that same school, in honor of the cen- 
tennial anniversary of Lessing's entrance. The old 
pastor took him there to have him prepared for the 
ministry. After Lessing left, he said that he had 
11 already at Meissen understood how one must learn 
much there which one cannot use in the world." 
That was more than a hundred years ago. Perhaps 
schools have changed since then. At Meissen, 
Lessing's favorite authors were Theophrastus, Plau- 
tus, and Terence, and he said that he got self- 
knowledge by reading " comedies." At this school 
he wrote parts of a poem "On the Plurality of 
Worlds." One expression in it is — "They make 
glorious shipwreck who are lost in seeking worlds." 
He also began his first dramatic work — a comedy — 
"The Young Scholar," of which he says that at 
that time, when he ' { knew men only from books, 
a young scholar was the only species of fool" which 
he could not have been unacquainted with. 

In September, 1746, when he was seventeen years 



SKETCH OF LESSING. IX 

old, he entered the University of Leipzic. While 
there, he studied the literature of the ancients with 
an interest far removed from the pedantic study of 
their languages then in vogue. He was also one of 
a little coterie who talked philosophy with Kaestnerj 
a young professor of great talent and enthusiasm. 
The world of Leipzic made Lessing realize, as he 
wrote to his mother, that " books might make 
him learned, but would never make him a man/' 
He felt himself pedantic, awkward, and boorish ; 
and in order to correct these defects, learned dan- 
cing, fencing, and riding, and sought society. The 
theatre at once attracted him. He became ac- 
quainted with Madame Neuber, the head of the 
dramatic company — a woman who, Lessing says, 
"had manly views, and a perfect knowledge of her 
art. " Meanwhile, he had fallen in with Mylius, 
the youth who got put in prison for his poem, who 
became a strong influence in directing the course 
of Lessing's life. Mylius was now one of the little 
philosophical coterie gathered about Professor Kaest- 
ner ; he was a man of great talent, very unorthodox 
opinions, and irregular life. He published popu- 
lar journals on scientific subjects, for which Lessing 
occasionally wrote poetic burlesques of scientific 
discussions. This man led Lessing more among 
the stage-people, and Lessing, of course, fell in 
love, very platonically, we are assured, with one of 
the young actresses. These associations led him to 



X SKETCH OF LESSING. 

finish "The Young Scholar," and it was played 
with great success by Madame Neuber's company. 

It is not much to the discredit of the poor old 
Pastor Primarius that, in an age when actors were 
considered too vile for Christian burial, he thought 
that, in such company, his son was going to per- 
dition. He pretended that Lessing's mother was 
dying, and sent for him to come to her. A heavy 
frost set in after the mailing of the letter, and Les- 
sing started without waiting for winter clothing. 
The parents were softened when their boy stood 
before them shivering with the severe cold, and he 
was made welcome. After three months, he went 
back to college. His parents considering that he 
had dwelt so long in the tents of the ungodly that 
it would be a desecration of the priestly office for 
him to embrace it, tried to make him a student of 
medicine. ■ He yielded so far as to attend several 
courses of medical lectures. 

Madame Neuber's theatre was soon broken up, 
and Lessing had gone security for so many of the 
debts of the actors, that, as no help could be looked 
for from home, he was obliged to leave Leip- 
zic. Going to Berlin, where Mylius was already 
editing a paper, he concluded to abandon study, 
and to try to relieve himself from his debts with 
his pen. 

Mylius did all he could for his friend, not stop- 
ping short at real sacrifices. But the influence of 



SKETCH OF LESSING. XJ 

4 'the free-thinker" was greatly dreaded by the good 
people at Kamenz, and they were further exercised 
by frequent rumors of their son's predilection for 
the stage. Their letters were full of urging to leave 
Berlin, and complaints at his course of life and 
irreligious opinions. A few sentences from his re- 
plies will throw light on some points in his charac- 
ter. " I shall not return home, neither shall I. go 
to any university; because my stipends" (allow- 
ances made by his native town for the support of a 
few of its young men at a university) "are not suffi- 
cient to pay my debts, and I cannot ask the neces- 
sary sum of you. . . . Wherever I may be, I 
shall continue to write, and I shall never forget the 
benefits I have so long received at your hands. 
The Christian religion is not a thing thai 
ought to be received on trust from one's parents. The 
great mass of mankind, it is true, inherit it as they 
do their property ; but their conduct shows what 
Christians they are." The ideas in this latter para- 
graph are common-place enough now, but Lessing 
wrote them in Germany a hundred and twenty years 
ago, when he was twenty years old. 

With the exception of part of 1752, spent in Wit- 
tenberg in studying for his degree of Master of 
Arts, the next ten years were mainly passed in 
Berlin. 

Lessing began work in Berlin by making trans- 
lations from the modern languages. He knew 



Xll SKETCH OF LEASING. 

French, Spanish, Italian, and English. Soon he 
founded, in connection with Mylius, a periodical 
devoted to dramatic subjects, ancient as well as 
modern. He withdrew from this publication be- 
cause Mylius was ignorant enough to assert in it 
that there had been no Italian drama. He then 
began writing for Voss's Gazelle. By this time he 
began to attract attention. German criticism was 
divided between the followers of Gottsched, who in- 
sisted on exact imitation in form and fact, and the 
Zurich school, who set no bounds to the imagina- 
tion. Lessing struck out a new path, by declaring 
that there are no a priori principles in art, that the 
only established canons are those that can be in- 
duced from works of art already existing, and that a 
fresh genius gives material for fresh canons. In 
other words, he applied to art trie ' experience ' 
principle of philosophy. He began hitting hard 
blows at the pedantry as well as the sentimentalism 
of the time, and directed them particularly against 
the French influence which was spreading both. 
The French classic drama was the model in Ger- 
many, and it was believed that classic themes were 
the only ones for tragedy. Lessing's English culture 
showed him so many illustrations of the falsity of 
this view, that he hunted out the principles which 
prove that man at one time is as much a subject 
for art as at another — that the soul of man, and not 
his surroundings, is the seat of all that is great in 



SKETCH OF LES8ING. Xlll 

dramatic poetry. In illustration of his realistic prin- 
ciples, he wrote, in 1753-5, "Miss Sara Sampson" 
— a tragedy in prose, the scene laid in England, and 
the time contemporaneous. The play was a suc- 
cess, and emancipated the German playwrights from 
their previous limitations. 

Carrying the same disregard of precedent and the 
same adherence to broad principles, into religion, 
he began quite early in his Berlin career to strike 
out such thoughts as these: "Well-doing is the 
main thing: belief is secondary." . . . "It is not 
agreement in opinions, but agreement in virtuous 
actions, that renders the world virtuous and happy." 
Of a romance whose scene was laid in Constanti- 
nople, he said : ' ' If a pious Moslem should read 
the book, he would constantly be constrained to cry 
out, 'What blasphemies!' and yet it is these very 
blasphemies which will edify many an honest Chris- 
tian." Nor did his religious views stop short of 
self-application. He carried about in his poverty 
a calm, cheerful philosophy, which prevented his 
believing that "one should thank God only for 
good things," and led him to believe that in man 
"it does not concern his conscience how useful 
he is, but how useful he would be." Lessing fur- 
ther carried out his healthy ideas against the licen- 
tiousness creeping into literature from the French 
influence. The central point of his theories of suc- 
cess in art was the character of the artist. To one 



I 



XIV SKETCH OF LESSING. 

trying to write for the stage, he says, "Study ethics, 
. . . cultivate your own character." 

His mode of life during these years must be 
judged with reference to the current views of the 
age. He was temperately fond of his wine-cellar, 
as the most sedate Germans are to-day, but he 
gambled a great deal harder than present ideas ap- 
prove. He continued this practice for many years, 
and said that "the eager attention which he gave 
the faro-table set his clogged machine in motion — 
brought the stagnant juices into circulation." There 
is no evidence that he gambled for gain, and all his 
views and generous habits forbid such a supposi- 
tion. 

He had not been in Berlin long before he began 
to make valuable friendships. Among the best and 
most enduring were those with Nicolai and Moses 
Mendelssohn — the grandfather of Felix. The friend- 
ship with Mendelssohn was life-long, and naturally 
has given rise to the notion that in Nathan the Wise, 
Lessing intended to portray his Jewish friend. Not 
only was he honored in these great friends, but was 
likewise honored in a still greater enemy — Voltaire. 
The acrid philosopher was then engaged in his dis- 
graceful lawsuit with Hirsch, and employed Lessing 
to translate some of the papers into German. This 
drew Lessing into Voltaire's society daily for some 
time. Lessing learned how to appreciate him ; 
but he was not the man to appreciate Lessing - 



SKETCH OF LESSING. X? 

and when Lessing borrowed from his secretary the 
manuscript of the newly completed Siecle de Louis 
XIV. , Voltaire finding it out, feared some trans- 
lating and reprinting plot. He wrote two insult- 
ing letters to Lessing, and received the replies he 
merited. This little affair naturally did not tend 
to soften the criticism which Lessing always felt it 
his duty to give Voltaire's imaginative writings, but 
it can hardly be regretted if it had any influence 
in inspiring what sometimes seems the best bon moi 
in all literature. Nicolai once said to Lessing, 
" You must admit that Voltaire has lately said many 
new and good things." "Certainly," answered 
Lessing, "but the new things are not good, and 
the good things are not new." 

In 1760, Lessing was driven by his poverty to ac- 
cept a position as assistant of General Von Tauen- 
zien, the director of Frederic's Mint at Breslau. Up 
to this time, his writings had consisted almost en- 
tirely of special criticisms and polemic letters. His 
only other works had been his Fabeln, the beautiful 
little tragedy of Philotas, and two dramas on the 
subject of Faust — one of which is lost, and the 
other exists but in fragments. At Breslau he re- 
mained five years. He was in comparative pros- 
perity, though not as great as it might have been 
had he not used his knowledge of the mint opera- 
tions most conscientiously. His peace of mind 
had two drawbacks — his family, who made the 



XVI SKETCH OF LESSING. 

most shameless demands on his finances, which he 
was too tender-hearted to treat wisely; and his Berlin 
friends, who bewailed his absence from them as a 
waste of time, and said that without him they could 
not continue the " Letters on Literature," which 
had been the most important vehicles of German 
criticism. His life seems to have been full of di- 
version and full of work. Goethe says that Lessing 
"was fond of casting off personal dignity, because he 
was confident that he could resume it at any time ; 
and delighted at that period to lead a dissipated 
life in taverns and society, since he needed con- 
stantly a strong counterpoise to his powerfully labo- 
rious soul." The fact that his soul was "powerfully 
laborious" during the Breslau period, is proven by 
the production of the first works that support his 
enduring fame — Minna von Barnhelm — a military 
drama, founded on his army associations, among 
which had been his presence at the siege of Schweid- 
nitz, and the Laokoon — one of the greatest syste- 
matic treatises on art criticism in existence. 

During the summer of 1764, when he was thirty- 
five years old, Lessing broke down into an inflamma- 
tory fever. It was his first hard sickness. When 
convalescing, he wrote : "I hope that this will soon 
pass away, and then I shall be as new-born. All 
changes of our temperament, I believe, are con- 
nected with the processes of our animal economy. 

The crisis of my life approaches ; I begin to be a 

id 



SKETCH OF LESSING. XV11 

man, and flatter myself that in this burning fever 1 
have laved away the last trace of my youthful follies. 
You wish me to be healthy ; but ought poets 
to wish for robust health ? The Horaces dwell in 
feeble bodies, the healthy Lessings become game- 
sters and tipplers. Yet wish me healthy, dear friend ; 
but, if possible, healthy with a slight memento, a 
thorn in the flesh, which shall make the poet feel 
from time to time the frailty of the man. " 

The next year Lessing returned to Berlin, bringing 
with him nothing but a library, which he afteiward 
sold at a great sacrifice. He fought poverty with 
his pen for a couple of years, was disappointed in 
an effort to get the place of royal Librarian from 
Frederic, and in 1767 accepted the position of 
theatre director at Hamburg. This led to his writ- 
ing a series of dramatic essays, preserved under the 
title of Dramaturgie. Its position among works of 
dramatic criticism is not unworthy of comparison 
' /ith the place which the Laokoon occupies in rela- 
tion to art in general. At the close of the Drama- 
turgfo he expresses the following interesting estimate 
of his own powers : "I am neither actor nor poet. 
. . . I do not feel in myself the living fountain 
which lifts itself by its own strength, and by its own 
strength sports and spreads in radiations so rich, so 
fresh, so pure ! With me it is all squeezing and 
pumping ! I should be altogether poor, and cold, 
and short-sighted, did I not know 7 how to borrow 



XVI 11 SKETCH OF LESSING. 

occasionally, with discretion, from foreign treasures, 
to warm myself at another man's fire, and to 
strengthen my sight with the optic glasses of art. I 
have, therefore, always been ashamed and angry 
when I have heard or read anything derogatory to 
criticism. Criticism, it is said, stifles genius ; 
whereas I flatter myself that I have received from it 
something that comes very near to genius. " Yet, 
Goethe said, " Lessing wished to disclaim the title 
of poet, but his immortal works testify against him- 
self." 

The author of the Dramaturgie found it impossible 
to keep peace in the theatrical camp while he indulged 
in special criticism ; and after he had expressed his 
views on the general principles of dramatic art, there 
was no further practicable field for his efforts. A 
publishing enterprise, into which he had gone, 
failed, and left him in debt. His works were 
bringing him nothing ; in no small degree because 
they could be reprinted and re-acted in every petty 
province of Germany without the author receiving 
any reward ; for the German nations were no 
nearer a civilized position regarding international 
copyright, a hundred years ago, than the United 
States of America are to-day. 

Relief, however, seemed at hand. Frederick 
William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, a literary 
toady, heard that such an ornamental appendage 
to his court as Lessing would make, could be had 



SKETCH OF LESSIXG, XIX 

cheap, and offered him the positon of librarian at 
Wolfenbtittel, at a very modest salary. Lessingwas 
now about forty years old, and his poverty was the 
more irksome because he wished to many. In 
Hamburg, he was a favored friend in the family of 
a certain Konig, and there is reason to believe that 
he had to smother a feeling toward his friend's wife, 
which, as it appeared hopeless, made him desirous 
of leaving the city. But his friend Konig died in 
1769, and within a reasonable time Lessing and Eva 
Konig were engaged. These circumstances made 
him ready to accept a fixed occupation, even to the 
prejudice of his literary pursuits, and he accepted 
the duke's offer. 

The residence at Wolfenbtittel occupied six years 
that were anything but happy. The place was un- 
healthy, he had no congenial society, was liable to 
interruption at all times, had to do an immense 
amount of purely routine work, and was constantly 
sick at heart from hope deferred. The letters pass- 
ing between him and Eva are full of the most beau- 
tiful sincerity, unselfishness, and common sense 
regarding all matters of the intellect and emotions ; 
but they are not the letters of people possessing a 
healthy capacity for cutting the gordian knots of 
circumstances. 

Konig's affairs were left in such a complicated 
condition that it was hard to settle his estate for the 
best advantage of his wife and four children, and 



XX SKETCH OF LESSING. 

Eva felt that she ought not to marry while the 
finances of the little ones were in such an uncertain 
condition. Lessing, on his part, had little more to 
depend upon than the illusive promises by which 
the Duke kept him in his place. 

Six years wore away in separation and anxious 
uncertainty. As may be imagined, they were not 
very productive years for Lessing. During them he 
gave to the world the ( ' Wolfenbtittel Fragments," 
which led to the controversy with Gotze. This affair 
is described in the essay at the end of this volume. 
He also finished Emilia Galotti* a tragedy that he 
had begun fifteen years before, while he was warm 
with enthusiasm for the regeneration of dramatic art. 
The motive of this tragedy is that of Virginius ap- 
plied to modern circumstances. In dramatic merit, 
it is Lessing's best production, and it is at the same 
time a consistent embodiment and beautiful illus- 
tration of those principles of dramatic art, of which, 
considering his time and circumstances, he may be 
called a creator. 

In 1775, Lessing went into Italy with the crown- 
prince of Brunswick, and was received everywhere 
with great attention. In Vienna, Emilia Galotti was 
played, and the poet was received with an ovation. 
Maria Theresa sent for him, and sought his opin- 
ions regarding the intellectual development of the 

* Now while we write, this play, in the original German, is on the 
programme of the leading theatre in New York. 



SKETCH OF LESSING. XXI 

empire. At Rome, he was presented to the Pope, 
and treated by the dignitaries in a manner which 
contrasted honorably with his treatment by eminent 
nersons at home. 

In 1776, he returned to Wolfenbtittel, and he and 
Eva were married. She was worthy of him, and he 
seemed entering on a new career of usefulness and 
happiness. In a year a son was born, but he lived 
only a day, and his mother died a few days after. 
This is the first overwhelming sorrow we know of in 
Lessing's life. To our mind, nothing in all the 
letteis he wrote at the time reveals its intensity so 
much as this: "I was so sorry to lose him, this 
son, for he had so much sense ! so much sense ! 
Do not think that my few hours of fatherhood have 
already made me such an ape of a father ! I know 
what I say ! Did it not show his sense that they 
were obliged to draw him into the world with for- 
ceps? that he so soon became disgusted with his 
new abode ? Was he not wise in seizing ttie first 
opportunity to make off again ?" We hope 

that not many of our readers know what this ten- 
dency to turn one's own sorrow into a jest means. 
Shakspeare knew it : if he did not, he could not 
have written this strange passage in Hamlet : 

Ghost [beneath]. Swear 1 

Hamlet. Ah, ha, hoy ! say'st thou so ? Art thou there, truepenny ? 
♦ * * * * * t 

Ghost [beneath]. Swear! 
Hamlet. Well said, old mole I Canst work V th' ground so fast ? 



XX11 SKETCH OF LESSING. 

The death of Lessing's wife re-made him. There- 
after, the dominant passion in his heart was not 
criticism, but sympathy. But he was dragged into 
controversy, and he had not lost the old heroic 
nature which made him, early in life, say that he 
never was at his best unless against an antagonist. 
Yet his fighting, and nearly all else that he did, 
was directly intended to promote the spiritual and 
moral progress of mankind. He devoted himself 
more to the profound questions of philosophy, and 
seems to have reached that plane of thought and 
interests which lies at the foundation of all other 
human effort. But little more than three years were 
left him. They were full of loneliness, though not 
from lack of friends, and of privation and weariness. 
Here are a few passages in one of his letters to 
Eliza Reimarus : " I must pay dearly for a single 
year that I lived with a rational woman. I must 
sacrifice all, all, in order not to expose myself to a 
suspicion which is utterly intolerable to me." In 
this, he alluded to his having again gone into debt 
for the sake of securing his wife's property to her 
children. "How often," he continues, "do I feel 
tempted to curse the day when I even once wished 
to be as happy as other people !" . . . " Yet I am 
too proud to acknowledge myself unhappy — only 
set the teeth, and let the boatVirift at the mercy of 
the winds and waves. Enough that I will not upset 
it myself." But to the outer wcyld, he was very calm 



\ 



SKETCH OF LESSING. XX111 

and strong. While these great forces were tugging 
at his soul, he produced "Nathan the Wise" — a 
poem worthy of such a birth, and probably impossi- 
ble without it. During these last years, he also wrote 
the "Five Conversations, for Freemasons/' in which 
he expressed his ideas of government and society, 
and " The Education of the Human Race," in 
which he stated his views of religious development. 
The first of the three is here to speak for itself. The 
other two are full of pregnant ideas, and, indeed, 
the very title of the latter was considered a happy em- 
bodiment of suggestive thought when it reappeared, 
a few years since, in "Essays and Reviews." 

Lessing died while on a visit to Brunswick, on 
the fifteenth of February, 1781. The newspapers 
in Hamburg were forbidden to publish anything in 
his praise, and the clergy endeavored to prevent a 
public ceremony in honor of his memory. Thus 
he shared the fate which, so far, has been appointed 
for the great Teachers. While it cannot be claimed 
that his labors are to be classed with those of the 
few men who are universally honored as finders of 
fundamental truths, the attainments he did make, 
after having forced his path through the errors of 
a strangely artificial and distorted age, give room to 
believe that had he been left to live a rounded life, 
he would have placed himself among those who are 
remembered not only always, but everywhere. 

H. H. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 



Sultan Saladin. 

Sittah, his Sister. 

Nathan, a rich Jew of Jerusalem. 

Recha, his adopted Daughter. 

Data, a Christian woman, living in the Jew's 

house as Recha's companion. 
A Young Templar. 
A Dervise. 

The Patriarch of Jerusalem. 
A Lay-Brother. 
An Emir. 
Mamelukes in Saladin's service. 

The scene is in Jerusalem. 



ACT FIRST. 



Scene I. 

Hall in Nathans House. 

Nathan reluming from a journey. Daja meeting hinu 

Daja. 
Tis he ; 'tis Nathan ! God be ever praised 
That you're returned to us again at last ! 

Nathan. 
Ay, Daja ; God be praised ! But why " at last ?" 
Was it my purpose to have come before ? 
Could I have come before ? for Babylon 
Is from Jerusalem, as I was forced 
To travel, turning oft to right and left, 
A good two hundred leagues. Collecting debts, 
Besides, is not a work to be dispatched 
In haste, or easily turned off. 

Daja. 

Oh, Nathan, 
What misery, what misery meanwhile 
Might have befallen you here ! Your house — 



4 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Nathan. 

Took fire, 
That have I heard already. God but grant 
I've heard the whole ! 

Daja. 

And might have easily 
Been leveled with the ground. 

Nathan. 

Then had we built 
Another and a better. 

Daja. 

True ; but Recha, 

Within a hair's breadth was she burned to death. 

Nathan. 
Burned ! — who ? — my Recha ? That I had not 

heard. 
Why, then, a house I should no more have needed. 
Within a hair's breadth burned to death ! She was— 
Was burned to death ! Speak out — speak out, I say I 
Slay me and torture me no longer ! Yes, 
She has been burned to death ! 

Daja. 

And if she were, 
Should I be telling it ? 

Nathan. 

Why fright me then? 
O Recha ! O my Recha ! 



NATHAN TEE WISE. 5 

Daja. 

Yours — your Recha ? 

Nathan. 
God grant I ne'er may have to unlearn the use 

Of calling her my child ! 

Daja. 

And call you all 
That you possess, with equal right your own ? 

Nathan. 
Naught with a greater. All I else possess 
Has been bestowed by Nature and by Fortune. 
This is the only gift I owe to Virtue. 

Daja. 
O Nathan, what a price you make me pay 
For all your kindness ! if aught exercised 
From such a motive can be called a kindness. 

Nathan. 

From such a motive ? What ? 

Daja. 

My conscience — 

Nathan. 

Daja, 
Let me but tell you first — 

Daja. 
I say my conscience — 



* 



6 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Nathan. 
What stuffs in Babylon I bought for you ! 
So precious and so tasteful. Recha's own 
Are scarcely fairer. 

Data. 
All in vain. My conscience, 
I tell you, will no more be lulled to sleep. 

Nathan. 
And how you will delight in all the jewels, 
The rings, the clasps, the ear-rings, and the chains, 
That in Damascus I selected for you, 
I'm eager to behold. 

Data. 

How like yourself ! 
You must be always giving, always giving. 

Nathan. 
Take gladly, as I give you, and — be silent ! 

Data. 

Be silent ! Doubts there any one that Nathan 
Is honor, generosity itself? 
And yet — 

Nathan. 

I'm but a Jew. Is that your meaning ? 

Data. 

You know my meaning better. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 7 

Nathan. 

Then be silent. 
Daja. 
1 will be silent. What of guilt grow hence 
In sight of God, which I cannot prevent, 
I cannot change — cannot, — fall on your head. 

Nathan. 
Fall on my head ! But tell me where she is. 
Where tarries she ? Ah, should you have deceived 

me! 
Knows she I'm here ? 

Daja. 

I might retort the question. 
Her every nerve still trembles with affright 
Her fancy colors with a glow of fire 
Whate'er it paints. In sleep her spirit wakes ; 
Awake, it sleeps : inferior now to brutes, 
Superior now to angels. 

Nathan. 

Ah, poor child ! 
What are we men ! 

Daja. 

This morning long she lay, 
With eyelids closed, as she were dead. Then quick 
Sprang up, cried, "Hark, my father's camels come! 
Hark, his own gentle voice !" Then drooped again 
Her eyelids, and, the arm's support withdrawn, 



8 NATHAN TEE WISE. 

Her head once more fell back upon the pillows. 
I hasted through the gate, and, lo ! 'twas you — 
'Twas you, indeed, approaching ! And what won- 
der? 
For her whole soul has since been but with you — 
And him. 

Nathan. 
And him ! What him ? 

Data. 

Who from the fire 
Preserved her. 

Nathan. 

Who was that ? Where is he now ? 
Who was it that preserved my Recha for me ? 

Data. 

A Templar, who, some days before a prisoner, 
Was hither brought, and pardoned by the Sultan. 

Nathan. 
A Templar granted life by Saladin ? 
Could no less miracle have saved my Recha ? 
God! 

Data. 
But for him who boldly risked again 
His unexpected boon, she had been lost. 

Nathan. . 
Where is this noble man ? Where is he, Daja ? 



NATHAN THE WISE. 9 

Conduct me to his feet. Whatever treasure 
Was left you, you bestowed on him at once ; 
Gave all ; with promises of more — much more? 

Data. 
How could we ? 

Nathan. 

Did you not ? 

Data. 

He came, but whence 
None knew ; he went, and whither none could tell. 
A stranger to the house, his ear alone 
To guide him, onward through the smoke and 

flame, 
With outstretched mantle, fearlessly he pressed 
Toward the voice that cried to us for help. 
Already had we given him up for lost, 
When suddenly, from out the smoke and flame, 
He stood before us, bearing her aloft 
In his strong arms. By our exultant thanks 
Unmoved, he laid his burden on the ground, 
Pressed through the multitude his way, and vanished. 

Nathan. 
But not, I hope, forever. 

Data. 

Many days 
We saw him yonder, walking to and fro 
Beneath the palms that shade the sepulchre 



IO NATHAN THE WISE. 

Of our ascended Lord. I went to him 

With rapture; thanked him, praised, commanded, 

begged 
He would but once behold the grateful girl, 
Who could not rest till at her savior's feet 
She'd wept her thanks. 

Nathan. 
Well? 

Data. 

Useless ; he was deaf 
To our entreaties, and he poured, besides, 
Such scorn upon me — 

Nathan. 

You were frightened off. 

Data. 

Nay ; anything but that. Day after day 
I went to him again ; day after day 
Let him again insult me. There is nothing 
I've not end'ared from him ; nothing that gladly 
I'd not have still endured. But long he's ceased 
To walk beneath the palms that shade the grave 
Of our ascended Lord, and no one knows 
His dwelling-place. — You are amazed; you pon- 
der? 

Nathan. 
I ponder the effect this must produce 
Upon a mind like Recha's. To be scorned 



NATHAX THE WISE. II 

By one whom she is bound to prize so highly : 
To be at once repelled and yet attracted. 
*Twixt head and heart long contest must ensue, 
If sorrow or misanthropy shall conquer. 
Xt neither triumphs, and imagination 
Becoming party in the strife, creates 
A dreamer, in whom now the head usurps 
The place of heart, and now the heart plays head 
Sad interchange ! If I mistake not Recha, 
The latter is her fate. She yields to fancies. 

Data. 

But then so pure, so lovely ! 

Nathan. 

Fancies still. 

Data. 

Above the rest, one — fancy, if you will — 

She cherishes. Her Templar, as she deems, 

Is not a mortal being, not of earth. 

One of the angels, to whose guardian care, 

Her little heart from childhood fondly thought 

Itself intrusted, stepped from out the cloud 

Beneath w r hose veil he hitherto had hovered 

About her even in the fire, and stood 

Revealed as Templar. — Do not smile ! Who knows ? 

At least, if smile you must, do not destroy 

A fancy shared alike by Christian, Jew, 

And Mussulman, — so beautiful a fancy. 



12 NATHAN TUB WISE. 

Nathan, 
And beautiful to me. — Go, trusty Daja, 
See how she is — if I may speak with her. 
Then I will seek this freakish guardian angel ; - 
And if it be his pleasure still to dwell 
Among us on the earth, and wear the guise 
Of so unmannerly a knight, doubt not 
I shall discover and conduct him hither. 

Daja. 
You promise much. 

Nathan. 

Should then this sweet conceit 
Be changed to sweeter truth — for, trust me, Daja, 
To human heart more dear is man than angel — 
You'll surely not with me — with me — be vexed 
If so this angel-dreamer shall be cured. 

Daja. 

How good you are, and yet how bad withal ! 
I go. But hark ! but see I She comes herselfl 



Scene II. 

Recha and the preceding. 

Recha. 
Is it in very truth yourself, my father ? 
I thought you had but sent your voice before. 



NATHAN THE WISE. ^ 

Where tarry you? What deserts or what moun- 
tains, 
What rivers, separate us now ? We breathe 
Beneath one roof, and yet you hasten not. 
To clasp your Recha, who was burned meanwhile ! 
Poor Recha ! Almost, only almost burned. 
Nay, shudder not ! Oh, 'tis an ugly death 
To die by fire 1 

Nathan. 
My child ! my darling child ! 

Recha. 
You had to cross the Euphrates, Tigris, Jordan, — 
W^ho knows how many more ? Oft for your life 
I trembled till the fire enveloped me ; 
But since the fire enveloped me, to die 
By water seems refreshment, solace, balm. 
But you have not been drowned, nor I been burned. 
We will rejoice, and give God thanks. He bore 
Your boat and you upon the unseen wings 
Of angels over all the faithless streams : 
He bade my angel visibly unfold 
His snowy wings, and bear me through the fire. 

Nathan. 
(His snowy wings ! Ah, yes ; the Templar's mantle, 
Outstretched and white.) 

Recha. 

Ay ; visibly to bear me 



14 NATHAN THE WISE. 

From out the flames, fanned backward by his wings. 
Thus have I seen an angel face to face— 
My guardian-angel. 

Nathan. 
Recha would be worth 
An angel's visiting, and would in him 
See naught more fair than he in her. 

Recha {smiling). 

My father, 
Whom flatter you — the angel or yourself? 

Nathan. 
Had but a human being, such a man 
As Nature daily grants, this service rendered, 
He must for you have been an angel ; ay, 
He must and would. 

Recha. 
Not such an angel. No ; 
This was in truth, in very truth an angel. 
Have you yourself not taught me to believe 
That angels are ; that God for them that love Him 
Can yet work miracles ? I love Him. 

Nathan. 

Yes ; 
And He loves you ; and hourly miracles 
For you, and such as you, is working now ; 
From all eternity has worked them for you. 



NATHAN TEE WISE. 1 5 

Recita. 

I love to hear it. 

Nathan. 
Natural it sounds 
And commonplace to have a Templar save you ; 
But is it therefore less a miracle ? 
The greatest miracle of all is this : 
That-true and genuine miracles become 
Of no significance. Without that wonder 
Scarce would a thoughtful man bestow the name 
On things that only children should admire, 
Who, gaping, follow what is new and strange. 

Data (Jo Naihaii). 
Would you to bursting strain her o'erwrought brain 
With all your subtleties ? 

Nathan. 

Trust her to me ! 
Were it not miracle enough for Recha 
To be delivered by a human being, 
Himself by no small miracle first saved ? 
Not small indeed ! Who ever heard before 
Of Templar being spared by Saladin — 
Of Templar asking to be spared, or hoping — 
Or offering more for freedom than the girth 
That holds his sword, or, at the most, his dagger ? 

Recha. 
That proves for me. my father. For that reason 
He was no actual Templar — only seemed it. 



1 6 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Since never to Jerusalem there came 
A captive Templar save to certain death ; 
Since none e'er walked Jerusalem so free, 
How could one voluntarily, at night, 
Have come to save me ? 

Nathan. . 
Most ingenious, Recha ! — 
Speak, Daja : 'twas from you I learned he came 
A prisoner hither ; you must know yet more. 

Daja. 

So runs the story. It is said, besides, 

That Saladin preserved the Templar's life 

Because of the resemblance that he bore 

A favorite brother. But as twenty years 

Have passed away since this dear brother's death- 

His name I know not — know not where he died- 

It sounds so — so incredible the whole 

May be but fiction. 

Nathan. 
Wherefore, Daja, sounds it 
Incredible, but that you would believe — 
As is the case — things more incredible ? 
Why should not Saladin, whose family 
Are all so dear to him, in younger days 
Have loved one brother with peculiar love ? 
Look not two countenances oft alike ? 
Are old impressions, therefore, vanished ones? 



NATHAN THE WISE. I7 

Works the same cause no longer one effect? 
Since when ? Where lies in this the incredible ? 
I grant you, Daja, it were then for you 
No more a miracle. Your miracles 
Alone demand — deserve, I mean — belief. 

Daja. 
You laugh at me. 

Nathan. 
Laughed you not too at me ?— 
Thus was your rescue still a miracle, 
Dear Recha, possible alone to Him 
Who oft is pleased to guide, by feeble threads, 
The set decrees and purpose absolute 
Of kings — his toys, if not his scorn. 

Recha. 

♦My father, 
If I am wrong, not willingly I err. 

Nathan. 
Willingly rather learn. See now — a forehead 
Arched thus, or so ; the outline of a nose 
Drawn this way more than that ; brows curving so. 
Or so, according as the bone is sharp 
Or round ; a line, crease, angle, spot, a nothing 
Upon the face of one wild European — 
And you are rescued from the fire in Asia ! 
Is that no miracle, ye wonder-seekers ? 
What need to trouble an angel with it then ? 

2* 



j8 NATHAN TEE WISE. 

Daja. 

What harm — if I may speak — in the belief 
An angel rather than a man has saved us ? 
Feel we not so much nearer brought to Him 
Of the deliverance the mysterious cause ? 

Nathan. 
Pride, Daja, naught but pride ! The iron pot 
Would have itself be lifted from the fire 
By silver tongs, that it may deem itself 
A silver pot. Pah ! What the harm, you ask ? 
What harm? What good, I might retort. 'Tis 

nonsense, 
Or blasphemy, this " feeling nearer God." 
But harm it does — ay, actual harm ; for listen : 
To your deliverer, be he man or angel, 
Would you not both, and you especially, 
Desire to render great and various service ? 
But how perform such service to an angel ? 
Thank him you can, and sigh to him and pray ; 
Can melt away in ecstasies before him ; 
Can keep a fast upon his sacred day ; 
Can give your charities ; — all that is naught. 
Your neighbor and yourself are more the gainers, 
It seems to me, than he. He grows not fat 
By all your fasting ; all your charities 
Make him not rich ; no greater is his glory 
For all your ecstasies ; his power no greater 
For all your faith ; is it not so ? But man — 



■ 



NATHAN THE WISE. jg 

Daja. 
A man indeed more opportunity 
Had given to serve him. What our readiness, 
God knows. But he was so above all wants, 
Was in and for himself so all-sufficient, 
As only angels are or angels can be. 

Recha. 
And when at last he vanished — 

Nat h ax. 

Vanished ! How ? 
No longer showed himself beneath the palms ? 
Or have you really further searched for him ? 

Daja, 
That we have not. 

Nathan. 
Not, Daja ? See what harm ! 
You cruel enthusiasts ! What if this angel 
Had been — been sick ? 

Recha. 
Sick! 

Daja. 

Sick ! He cannot be ! 
Recha, 
A shudder chills me. Daja, feel — my brow, 
So warm but now, is turned to ice 1 



20 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Nathan. 

A Frank 
He is, a stranger to our climate ; young; 
To all the hard requirements of his Order — 
To hunger, watching, unaccustomed. 

Recha. 

Sick! 
Data. 

He only means, that it were possible. 

Nathan. 
See, there he lies, without a friend, or gold 
To purchase friends — 

Recha. 
Alas ! my father 1 

Nathan. 

Iks 
Without attendance, counsel, sympathy- — 
A prey to sorrows, and perhaps to death. 

Recha. 
Where ? Where ? 

Nathan. ' 
He who for one he never knew 
Nor saw — enough it was a human being — 
Had leaped into the flames — 

Data. 

Oh, spare her, Nathan 1 







nathan the wise, 21 

Nathan. 
Who would not know more nearly, would not see 
What he had saved, that he might not be thanked— 

Data. 

Oh, Nathan, spare her — spare her I 

Nathan. 

Had no wish 
To see again, unless a second time 
He might deliver ; for enough for him 
It was a human being — 

Data. 

Hush ! Ah, see ! 

Nathan. 
He, dying, has no other solace, none, 
Besides the memory of his deed. 

Data. 

Hush! hush! 
You're killing her. 

Nathan. 

And so did you kill him ; 
Or so you might have killed him. Recha ! Recha I 
Tis medicine, not poison, that I give you ! 
He lives I Come, be yourself ! He is not sick — 
Not even sick ! 

Recha. 
Quite sure ? Not dead ? Not sick ? 



zz nathan the wise. 

Nathan. 
Not surely dead ; for God rewards even here 
The good that here is done. But have you learned 
That pious ecstasies are easier far 
Than virtuous deeds ; how gladly idleness, 
Concealing its true motive from itself, 
Would stand excused from virtuous deeds, and plead 
Its pious ecstasies instead ? 

Recha. 

My father, 
Leave, leave your Recha nevermore alone ! — 
He has but left Jerusalem perhaps ? 

Nathan. 
Assuredly. — Yonder a Mussulman, 
With curious eye, observes my loaded camels. 
Look ! Know you him ? 

Daja. 
It is your dervise. 

Nathan. 

Who? 
Daja. 
Your dervise ; your antagonist at chess. 

Nathan. 
Al-Hafi ! That Al-Hafi ! 

Daja. 

Treasurer now 
OfSaladin. 



nathan the wise. 2$ 

Nathan. 
Dream you again ? Al-Hafi ! — 
Tis he— 'tis he indeed ! He comes toward us. 
Quick, back into the house ! — What will he tell me? 



Scene III. 
Nathan and the Dervise. 

Dervise. 
Now let your eyes be opened to their widest ! 

Nathan. 
Is it yourself or not ? In this attire — 
A dervise ? 

Dervise. 
Well, why not ? Can dervises 
Be turned to no account whatever then ? 

Nathan. 
To plenty. But I had supposed a dervise, 
A genuine dervise, would be turned to none. 

. Dervise. 
By the Prophet ! May be I'm no genuine one. 
Yet, if one must — 

Nathan. 
Must — dervise ? Dervise must ? 
Nay, no man must ; why must a dervise then ? 
What must he, pray ? 



24 nathan the wise, 

Dervise. 

What is desired of him 
In faith and honor, and he knows is right — 
That must a dervise. 

Nathan. 
There you speak the truth. 
Let me embrace you, man, and call you friend ! 

Dervise. 
Before you learn to what I've been promoted ? 

Nathan. 
In spite of your promotion. 

Dervise. 

I'm become 
A fellow in the State, perhaps, w r hose friendship 
Were inconvenient. 

Nathan. 
I will take the risk, 
If but your heart continue dervise still. 
The fellow in the State is but your gown. 

Dervise. 
But that craves honor too. What think you ? Guess 1 
What were I at your court ? 

Nathan. 

Dervise — no more ; 
Unless you might besides be — cook. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 2$ 

Dervise. 

Goto! 
I should unlearn my trade with you. A cook ! 
Not butler too ? — Confess that Saladin 
Could better read me. I'm his treasurer ! 

Nathan. 
You — his ? 

Dervise. 

But of the smaller treasure, mind — 
That for his house. His father holds the greater. 

Nathan. 
His house is great. 

Dervise. 
Ay, greater than you think ; 
For every beggar forms a part of it. 

Nathan. 
Yet Saladin is so opposed to beggars — 

Dervise. 
He would exterminate them root and branch, 
Though he himself thereby be made a beggar. 

Nathan. 
I thought so. 

Dervise. 

Is one now in fact. Each day 
His treasury contains, at sunset, less 
Than nothing. Let the tide be e'er so high 
At morning, long ere noon 'tis all run out. 
3 



26 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Nathan. 
Because canals, alike impossible 
To fill or stay, are feeding from it: 

Dervise. 

Right ! 
Nathan. 
I know it all. 

Dervise. 
When princes are the vultures 
Amidst^the carrion, that is bad enough ; 
But when they are the carrion 'midst the vultures, 
'Tis ten times worse. 

Nathan. 

Oh; never, never that ! 

Dervise. 
Ah, you may talk ! — But come, what will you give 
If I resign my office to you ? Eh ? 

Nathan. 
What yields your office ? 

Dervise. 

Me indeed not much ; 
But for yourself 'twould yield abundantly. 
For when the tide is low, as low it will be, 
Lift up your own flood-gates, advance your money, 
And take in interest whatsoe'er you will. 



1 



NATHAN THE WISE. 2 J 

Nat h ax. 
Perhaps charge interest on the interest 
Of interest ? 

Dervise. 
Yes. 

Nathan. 

Till my capital 
Becomes all interest. 

Dervise. 

That tempts you not ? 
Then write at once the quittance of our friendship ; 
For I had counted much on you. 

Nathan. 

How so ? 

Dervise. 
That you would help me hold my post with honor ; 
Your purse be open always to my need. 
You shake your head ? 

Nathan. 
Let's understand each other. 
There's a distinction here. To you — why not ? 
Al-Hafi, dervise, shall to all I have 
Be ever warmly welcome. But Al-Hafi, 
The treasurer of the Sultan — he — to him — 

Dervise. 
Did I not guess it ? — How your goodness ever 



28 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Keeps pace with prudence, prudence with your wis- 
dom ; 
But patience, and this difference in Al-Hafi, 
Shall trouble you no more. — Behold this robe 
Of honor that the Sultan decked me with. 
Ere it be faded and in rags, fit clothing 
For dervise' wear, within Jerusalem 
It shall be hanging, while beside the Ganges, 
Barefoot and light, I walk the burning sands 
Among my teachers. 

Nathan. 
Like yourself ! 

Dervise. 

And play 
At chess with them. 

Nathan. 
Your highest good. 

Dervise. 

Consider 
What tempted me ;- — that I might beg no longer ? 
Might play the part of rich man amongst beggars ? 
Might have the power of making in a twinkling 
A poor rich man out of the richest beggar ? 

Nathan. 
Not surely that. 

Dervise. 
Far more absurd than that. 



NATHAN THE WISH. 29 

The first time in my life I had been flattered, 
By Saladin's kind-hearted fancy flattered. 

Nathan, 
What fancy ? 

Dervise. 
That a beggar only knew 
The feelings of a beggar ; that a beggar 
Alone had learned kind dealings with a beggar. 
"Your predecessor/' he said, "was cold and harsh, 
He gave unkindly, if he gave at all ; 
Must always first ungraciously inquire 
About the asker — not content to know 
He was in want ; he must discover, too, 
The reason of the want, and make his gifts, . 
His stingy gifts, proportionate to that. 
Not so Al-Hafi. So unkindly kind 
He will not suffer Saladin to seem. 
Al-Hafi is not like those foul, clogged pipes, 
That give back troubled and impure the water 
That was so clear and still when they received it, 
Al-Hafi thinks, Al-Hafi feels with me." 
Thus sweetly sang the fowler's voice, and lured 
The silly bird within the net. O fool ! 
The fool too of a fool ! 

Nathan. 

But gently, gently, 
My dervise I 



30 nathan the wise. 

Dervise. 
What ! Is it not foolery 

To oppress one's brother-men by hundreds, thou- 
sands — 

To waste their strength, to plunder, torture, kill 
them — 

Yet wish to appear the savior of a few ? 

Is it not foolery to try to ape 

The mercy of the Highest — who, impartial, 

On evil and on good, on. field and waste, 

Spreadeth Himself abroad in sun and rain — 

Yet not to have the overflowing hand 

Of the Almighty ? Is't not foolery — 

Nathan. 
Enough ! Have done ! 

Dervise. 

Not till I have confessed 
My equal foolery. Say, was it none 
In me that I was always tracing out 
The kindly side of fooleries like these, 
As my apology for sharing in them ? 
Call you that none ? 

Nathan. 
Al-Hafi, make all haste 
To get into your wilderness again. 
I fear lest, living among men, you'll cease 
To be a man yourself. , 



1siathan the wise. 3 1 

Dervise. 

I fear it too. 
Farewell ! 

Nathan. 

So hasty ? Hold, Al-Hafi, hold ! 
Fear you the desert will escape ? Stay — stay ! 
Will he not hear me ? Ho, Al-Hafi — here ! 
No, he is gone ; and I had asked so gladly 
About our Templar : he must know the knight. 



Scene IV. 
Data entering hastily. Nathan. 

Daja. 
O Nathan, Nathan ! 

Nathan. 
Well, what is it, Daja ? 

Daja. 
He has appeared again — appeared again ! 

Nathan. 
Who, Daja ? 

Daja. 
He! 

' Nathan. 
He ? When appeared he not ? 
Aha ! 'tis only your he that is he. 
That is not well ; not though he were an angel. 



32 nathan the wise. 

Daja. 
Beneath the palms he's walking to and fro, 
And breaking ever and anon the dates. 

Nathan. 
And eating ? As a Templar ? 

Daja. 

Tease me not ! 
Beneath the palm-trees' thickly woven shade 
Her greedy eye discovered him, and follows 
Unwaveringly ; and she entreats, conjures you, 
Without delay, to go to him. Oh, haste ! 
She's at her window, and will sign to you 
Which way to seek him. Haste ! 

Nathan. 

• Just from my camels ? 
Would that be courteous ? Haste to him yourself, 
And tell him my return. It was his honor 
Alone forbade his entering my house 
While I was absent. He'll be glad to come 
When 'tis the father that invites him. Go, 
Say I invite him, cordially invite — 

Daja. 
In vain ; he will not come to you. In short, 
He comes not to a Jew. 

Nathan. 
Yet go ; at least 
Detain him — keep at least your eye upon him. 
Go first ; I follow instantly. Go — go ! 



FATHAX THE WISE. 33 



Scene V. 

A square planted with palm-trees, wider which the 
Templar is walking to and fro. A Lay-brother 
follows hint at a little distance, as if he would speak 
with him. 

Templar. 
'Tis not from idleness he follows me. 
See how he glances towards my hands. — Good 

brother — 
Or may I call you father ? 

Lay-brother. 

Brother only. 
A poor lay-brother only, at your service. 

Templar. 
Good brother, had I aught myself — By heaven, 
By heaven, I've nothing — 

Lay-brother. 

Still, take hearty thanks. 
May God return to you a thousand-fold 
What you would give me. For the w T ill it is 
That makes the giver — not the gift. Besides, 
I was not sent to beg the knight for alms. 

Templar. 
Then you were sent ? 



54 NATHAN THE WI8M. 

Lay-brother. 
Yes ; from the monastery. 

Templar. 
Where I had hoped but now to find a morsel 
Of pilgrim's fare ? 

Lay-brother. 
The tables then were filled. 
But let the knight return with me. 

Templar. 

Why so ? 
'Tis many a day since I have tasted meat. 
Besides, what need ? The dates are ripe. 

Lay-brother. 

The knight 
Should be upon his guard against the fruit ; 
Too much is dangerous. It clogs the spleen, 
Breeds melancholy. 

Templar. 
And if I now prefer 
Being melancholy ? But to give that warning 
You were not sent. 

Lay-brother. 
Oh no ; I was but sent 
To sound the knight somewhat — to feel his pulse, 

Templar. 
You tell me that yourself? 



NATHAN THE WISE. 35 

Lay-brother. 

And wherefore not ? 
Templar. 
(A crafty brother. ) Does the monastery 
Have many such as you ? 

Lay-brother. 

I do not know. 
I must obey, sir knight. 

Templar. 
So you obey, 
And ask no questions ? 

Lay-brother. 

Were aught else obeying, 
Sir knight ? 

Templar. 
(See how simplicity is sure . 
To come off best ! ) Could you not further tell 
The name of him who seeks such knowledge of me ? 
My oath, 'tis not yourself. 

Lay-brother. 

Were it becoming 
In me, or profitable ? 

Templar. 

Whom could it profit, 
Or whom become to be so curious ? 



36 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Lay-brother. 
The Patriarch, I conclude, since he it was 
Who sent me here. 

Templar. 
The Patriarch ? Knows he not 
The white cloak's bloody cross ? 

Lay-brother. 

Even I know that. 
Templar. 
Well then ! I am a Templar, and a captive. 
And if I add that I was taken at Tebnin, 
The fortress that we vainly tried to scale 
Before the truce expired, and thus lay open 
A passage into Sidon, — if I add, 
That twenty more were taken captive with me, 
But I alone received the Sultan's pardon, — 
Then has the Patriarch all he needs to know — 
More than he needs. 

Lay-brother. 
Scarce more, though, than he knew, 
He fain would know the reason why the knight 
Was pardoned by the Sultan — he alone. 

Templar. 

I know not that myself. My neck was bared, 
And on my mantle kneeling I awaited 
The final stroke, when more intent his eyes 



NATHAN TEE WISE. 37 

The Sultan fixes on me, toward me springs, 
And motions. I am raised ; my chains fall off; 
I tiy to thank him ; tears are in his eyes ; 
Silent is he — am I ; he goes, I stay. 
What now the meaning of it all may be, 
The Patriarch must unriddle for himself. 

Lay-brother. 
His inference is that God must have reserved you 
For great, great enterprises. 

Templar. 

Great indeed ! 
For rescuing a Jewess from the fire, 
Conducting curious pilgrims up Mount Sinai, 
And more as great. 

Lay-brother. 

The rest will come. Meanwhile 
'Tis not a bad beginning. Greater things 
Already for the knight the Patriarch 
May have in store. 

Templar. 
Ah, brother, think you so ? 
Has any hint been dropped of such ? 

Lay-brother. 

Ay, ay. 
But first I am to sound the knight to learn 
If he's the man. 



3b NATHAN THE WISE. 

Templar. 
All right ; sound on ! (Let's see 
How he will sound me !) Well ? 

Lay-brother. 

The shortest way 
Were honestly to set before the knight 
The Patriarch's wish. 

Templar. 
Good ! 

Lay-brother. 

He desires to send 
A little letter by the knight. 

Templar. 

By me ? 
I am no carrier. So then, that's the work 
He holds more glorious than the rescuing 
A Jewess from the fire ? 

Lay-brother. 

It must be ; for — 
The Patriarch says — upon this little letter 
The interests of all Christendom depend. 
God will reward the safe delivery of it — 
The Patriarch says — with a peculiar crown 
In heaven ; and of this crown — the Patriarch says- 
Is none more worthy than the knight. 



NAx'HAN THE WISE. y 

Templar. 

Than I ? 

Lay-Brother. 
Because to earn this crown — the Patriarch says — 
Is none more fitted than the knight. 

Templar. 

Than I ? 
Lay-Brother. 
You have your freedom here ; can everything 
Examine at your will ; you understand 
How cities should be stormed; and how defended ; 
Can duly estimate — the Patriarch says — 
The strength and weakness of that inner wall 
Just built by Saladin ; and can minutely 
Describe it to the soldiers of the Cross. 

Templar. 
Could you not further tell me the contents, 
Good brother, of the letter ? 

Lay-brother. 

The contents — 
I know not quite myself. But to King Philip 
The letter is addressed. The Patriarch — 
I oft have wondered that a holy man, 
Whose walk is else in heaven, should deign to keep 
So well informed of the affairs of earth. 
It must be very burdensome to him. 



40 nathan the wise, 

Templar. 
Go on ; the Patriarch — 

Lay-brothee. 

Knows beyond a doubt 
Exactly how and where, with how great force, 
From what direction, Saladin will open 
The next campaign, should war break out afresh 

Templar. 
He does ? 

Lay-brother. 
He does, and would inform King Philip ; 
That he may judge if danger be so great, 
'Twere better to renew at any cost 
The truce with Saladin, so lately broken 
By your brave Order. 

Templar. 
What a Patriarch ! 
No common messenger he seeks in me, 
Good honest man ; he wants — a spy. Go, tell him, 
As far as you could sound me, worthy brother, 
He had mistaken his man ; that I am bound 
To hold myself still captive ; and that Templars 
Have one profession, that of arms — know naught 
Of playing the spy. 

Lay-brother. 

I thought so ! None the worse 
My judgment of the knight. The best remains. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 4 1 

The Patriarch has ferreted out the fortress, 
What name it bears, and where on Lebanon 
It Kes, wherein are stored the enormous sums 
From which the Sultan's prudent father pays 
The army, and defrays all costs of war. 
Thither, from time to time, the Sultan goes, 
By lonely roads, and almost unattended. 
You understand ? 

Templar, 

Not I! 

Lay-brother. 

How easy now 
To overpower the Sultan, or — despatch him. 
You shudder ? Nay ; two pious Maronites 
Have volunteered already for the deed, 
If but some valiant man be found to lead them. 

Templar. 
And did the Patriarch look to me again 
To be this valiant leader ? 

Lay-brother. 

He believes 
That out of Ptolemais can King Philip 
Give most effectual aid. 

Templar. 
To me — to me ? 
Have you not heard, have you not just been told, 
What obligations bind me to the Sultan ? 
4* 



4 2 NATHAN, THE WISE. 

Lay-brother. 
I heard. 

Templar. 
And yet- — 

Lay-brother. 

Oh, yes — the Patriarch says — 
That may be very well ; but God, your Order — 

Templar. 
Change naught ; command no villany ! 

Lay-brother. 

Oh no; 
But then— the Patriarch says — a villany 
In man's esteem may not be one in God's. 

Templar. 
My life I owe the Sultan. Shall my hand 
Rob him of his ? 

Lay-brother. 
As long — the Patriarch says — 
As Saladin remains the enemy 
Of Christendom, he can acquire no right 
To be your friend. 

Templar. 
My friend ? A man to whom 
I only would not play the thankless villain. 

Lay-brother. 
True ; but — the. Patriarch says— the debt of thanks 



NATHAN THE WISH. 43 

Is cancelled, cancelled before God and man, 
For service rendered on account of others. 
And as — the Patriarch says — it is reported 
The Sultan spared you only for a something, 
In face or bearing, that recalled a brother — 

Templar. 
That too the Patriarch knew ; and even yet — 
Oh were I sure of that ! Ah, Saladin ! 
Could Nature fashion but a single feature 
In likeness of your brother, yet my soul 
Receive no answering trait ; or could such trait, 
To do a Patriarch's pleasure, be suppressed ? 
Nature, so liest thou not ; not so does God 
Belie himself upon his works ! Go, brother ; 
Provoke me not to anger. Go ! 

Lay-brother. 

I go; 
And readier than I came. Forgive me, knight. 
We brothers have no choice but to obey. 



Scene VI. 

The Templar and Data. Daja has been watching 
from a distance, and now approaches. 

Daja. 

The brother's visit left him not, methinks, 

In happiest humor. Still, I needs must venture. 



44 nathan the wise. 

Templar. 
Ah, excellent ! The proverb holds — th? rr <uk 
And woman, woman and monk, are Sat m's claws. 
To-day he throws me to and fro between them. 

Data. 
Do I again behold you, noble knigr ? 
Thank God a thousand times ! Bu where so long 
Have you been hiding ? Not beer rick, I hope ? 

Templar. 
No. 

Data. 
Well, then? 

Templar 
Yes. 

Data. 
We haveoeen anxious for you. 

Templar. 
Indeed ! 

Data. 
Have you been on a journey? 

Templar. 

Yes. 

Data. 

And just returned to-day ? 

Templar. 

No ; yesterday. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 



45 



Daja. 
To-day has Recha's father too returned. 
Now may not Recha hope ? 

Templar. 

For what ? 

Daja. 

For that 
She has so often begged. Her father too 
Will soon himself most pressingly invite you. 
He comes from Babylon, with twenty camels 
Piled high with precious spices, stones, and stuffs, 
The rich returns of India, Persia, Syria — 
Of China even. 

Templar 
I do not buy. 

Daja. 

His people 
Revere him as a prince ; yet why ' the wise' 
They call him, not c the rich, ' I often wonder. 

Templar. 
To them, perchance, are rich and wise the same. 

Daja. 

Good should they call him first. How good he is 
You cannot think. When Recha's debt to you 
Was told him, there was nothing in that moment 
He'd not have done for you or given. 



46 nathan the wise. 

Templar. 

Indeed ! 

Daja. 

Try him, and see ! 

Templar. 
How soon a moment passes ? 

Daja. 
Were he less good, should I have been content 
So long to dwell with him ? You think, perhaps, 
I do not feel my dignity as Christian ? 
No song beside my baby-cradle told 
That only for this cause to Palestine 
I should accompany my wedded lord, 
There to bring up a Jewish girl. My husband, 
A noble squire in Emperor Frederick's army — 

Templar. 
By birth a Swiss, to whom had been accorded 
The glory of drowning in the selfsame stream 
With his Imperial Majesty. O woman, 
How often have you told me that before ? 
Is there no end to your pursuing me ? 

Daja. 
Pursuing ? 

Templar. 

Yes, pursuing. I'll not see 
Nor hear you more ; I will not be reminded 
Forever by you of a deed I did 



NATHAN THE WISE. 47 

Without a thought ; a riddle to myself 
Whene'er I think of it. Not willingly 
Would I repent it ; but should such a chance 
Again occur, you'll have yourself to blame 
If I'm a trifle slower, stop to question, 
And let what's burning, burn. 

Data. 

May God forbid ! 

Templar. 
From this day forth, grant me at least the favor 
Of knowing me no more. I beg it of you. 
Keep too the father from me. Jew is Jew. 
I am a clumsy Swabian. Long ago 
The maiden's image faded from my soul, 
If it were ever there. 

Data. 
Not yours from hers. 

Templar. 
And what of that ? 

Data. 
Who knows ? Men are not always ) 
The thing they seem. 

Templar. 
Yet seldom better. [Is going. 

Data. 

Stay; 
Why haste you ? 



48 NATHAN THE WISE, 

Templar. 
Woman, do not make these palms, 
'Neath which I've loved to walk, grow hateful to me. 

Data. 
Go then, you Northern bear ! Go — go ! And yet 
I must not lose the monster out of sight. 
\She follows him at a distance. ] 



X A Til AX THE WISE. 49 



ACT SECOND. 



S C E N E I. 

Room in the Sultan's palace, Saladin and Sittah 
at chess, 

Sittah. 
Where are you, Saladin ? Why, how you play ! 

Saladin. 

Not well ? I thought I did. 

Sittah. 

For me : yet hardly. 
Take back that move. 

Saladin. 

Why so ? 

Sittah. 

The knight's exposed. 

Saladin. 

True : so, then ! 

Sittah. 
Then shall I step in between. 

Saladin. 

You're right again. Then check ! 
5 



50 NATHAN THE WISE. 

SlTTAH. 

What use in that ? 
I interpose, and you are where you were. 

Saladin. 

From this dilemma is there no escape, 

Except by paying. Weil, then take my knight. 

SlTTAH. 

I want him not ; I let him stand. 

Saladin. 

No favor. 
The place was more important than the piece. 

SlTTAH. 

May be. 

Saladin. 
But reckon not without your host. 
See ! had you looked for that ? 

SlTTAH. 

I'd not, indeed ; 
How could I think you weary of your queen ? 

Saladin. 
My queen ? 

SlTTAH. 

Beyond my thousand denarii, 
No fraction shall I win to-day, I see. 

Saladin. 
How so ? 






NATHAN TEE WISE. 5 1 

SlTTAH. 

You ask ? Because with ail your might 
You will be beaten. That's no gain to me. 
Small pleasure can one take in games like that. 
Besides, win I not always most from you 
When I have lost ? When have you failed to send 
The double of the stake, to comfort me 
For my defeat ? 

Saladix. 
Ah ! so, my little sister, 
'When you have lost, you lost on purpose — eh ? 

Sittah. 
Your generosity at least, dear brother, 
May be to blame that I'm no better player. 

Saladix. 
But we forget our game. Come, make an end ! 

Sittah. 
How stands it ? So then, check, and double check ! 

Saladix. 
That double check I truly had not seen. 
It fobs me of my queen. 

Sittah. 

Could you have helped it ? 
Let's see ! 

Saladix. 
Xo, no ; take off the queen. I ne'er 
Was lucky with the piece. 



52 NATHAN THE WISE. 

SlTTAH. 

Only the piece ? 
Saladin. 
Away with her ! No harm is done ; for thus 
All's safe again. 

Sittah. 
Well has my brother taught 
The courtesy that should be showed to queens. 

[Leaves her, 
Saladin. 
Take her or take her not ! I have no other. 

Sittah. 
Why should I take her ? Check ! check ! 

Saladin. 

Keep on ! 

Sittah. 

Check ! 
And check ! and check ! 

Saladin. 
And mate ! 

Sittah. 

Not quite ; your knight 
Can interpose, or what you will ; all one. 

Saladin. 
Right ! You have won, and Han pays. Go, call 
him ! — 



NATHAN THE WISE. 53 

You guessed aright, dear Sittah ; for my mind 
Was not intent upon the game — it wandered. 
Besides, who gives us these smooth pieces always. 
That have no meaning, no suggestion in them ? 
Havel then played with the Imam himself? — 
4 Defeat but seeks excuse. ; Twas not alone 
The shapeless pieces, Sittah, made me lose. 
Your skill, your sharper, quicker eye — 

Sittah. 

There too 
You would but blunt the sting of your defeat. 
Enough, you were preoccupied ; even more 
Than I. 

Saladin. 
Than you ? What had you on your mind ? 

Sittah. 
Not your anxiety. — O Saladin, 
When shall we play so heartily again ? 

Saladin. 
We'll play but so much the more greedily. 
Because there's to be war again, you mean ? 
So be it ! On ! Not I the first to draw. 
I gladly would have had the truce renewed ; 
Gladly, most gladly, would have given my Sittah 
A noble husband, too, as Richard's brother 
Had surely been. Is he not Richard's brother ? 

Sittah. 
Ah, if you can but sing your Richard's praises ! 

'5* 



54 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Saladin. 

If Richard's sister, then, could have become 
Our brother Melech's wife— Ah, what a house ! 
Of all the best, first houses in the world, 
The best, the first. You see I am not slow 
To praise myself. I do not deem myself 
Unworthy of my friends. What men had then 
Been born into the world ! 

Sittah. 

Did I not laugh 
From the beginning at your beauteous dreams .? 
You do not know, you will not know the Christians. 
■ Christianity, not manhood, is their pride. 
E'en that which from their founder down has spiced 
Their superstition with humanity, 
'Tis not for its humanity they love it. 
No ; but because Christ taught, Christ practised it. 
Happy for them he was so good a man ! 
Happy for them that they can trust his virtue ! 
His virtue ? Not his virtue, but his name, 
They say, shall spread abroad, and shall devour 
And put to shame the names of all good men. 
The name, the name is all their pride. 

Saladin. 

Why else, 
You think, should they require of you and Melech 
To take the Christian name, ere you could love 
A Christian consort ? 



NATHAN THE WISE. 55 

SlTTAH. 

Yes ; as if in Christians, 
As Christians only, could exist that love 
With which, in the beginning, God endowed 
Both man and woman. 

Saladin. 
Poor conceits too many 
The Christians hold, not to believe that also. 
And yet you err. The Templars, not the Christians,. 
Are here to blame ; are not to blame as Christians, 
But Templars. They it is who bring our plans 
To naught. They will not lose their hold on Acca, 
Which Richard's sister, as her dower, would bring 
To Melech. Lest the knightly interest 
Should suffer loss, they play the silly monk. 
A sudden blow they think may have success, 
And scarce can wait until the truce be o'er. — 
Keep on, my masters, on ! I'm well content. 
Were but all else as I would have it ! 

Sit t ah. 

What? 
What else disturbed you — so could ruffle you ? 

Saladin. 

What always has disturbed me. I have been 
Upon Mount Lebanon ; I've seen our father. 
His cares still burden him. 

Sittah. 
Alas! 



56 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Saladin. 

Escape 
There's none ; on every side he's cramped ; feels 

lack, 
Now here, now there. 

Sittah. 
What is it lacks ? What cramps him ? 

Saladin. 
What else but that I hardly deign to name ; 
Which, when I have, seems worthless ; but when not, 
Is indispensable ? — Where tarries Hafi ? 
Was he, not called ? — This fatal, cursed gold ! 
Good, Hafi, that you're come. 



Scene II. 
The dervise Al-Hafi. Saladin. Sittah. 

Al-Hafi. 

The gold from Egypt 
Has then arrived. There need be plenty of it. 

Saladin. 
Have you had tidings ? 

Al-Hafi. 
I? Not I! I came 
Expecting to receive them. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 57 

Saladin. 

Pay to Sittah 
A thousand denarii. 

[ Walks to and fro, lost in thought. 

Al-Hafi. 
Pay — not receive ! 
That's good ! A something rather less than naught. 
To Sittah ? Once again to Sittah ? Lost ? 
And lost again at chess ! There stands the game. 

Sittah. 
You cannot grudge me my good fortune ? 

Al-Hafi (studying the game). 

Grudge ? 
If — But you know. 

Sittah (rno Honing to htm). 
Hush, Han, hush ! 

Al-Hafi (still looking on the board). 

'Twere better 
You grudged yourself. 

Sittah. 
Hush, Han! 

Al-Hafi (to Sittah). 

Yours the white? 
You offer check ? 

Sittah. 
'Tis well he does not hear. 



58 NATHAN TILE WISE, 

Al-Hafi. 
The move is his ? 

Sittah {going nearer to /tin). 

Pray, say I may receive 
My money. 

Al-Hafi (still intent on the game). 
Yes ; you shall receive the money, 
As you receive it always. 

Sittah. 
Are you mad ? 

Al-Hafi. 
The game's not over, Saladin — not lost. 

, Saladin {scarce attending). 
No matter ! Pay ! 

Al-Hafi. 
Pay — pay ! — There stands your queen, 

Saladin. 
She counts for naught ; belongs not in the game, 

Sittah. 
Make haste and say that I may fetch the money. 

Al-Hafi {still eager with the game). 
Of course ; as usual. — But suppose the queen 
Be no more in the game, you re not yet mated. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 59 

Saladin (approaches and overturns the board). 
lam; I will be. 

Al-Hafi. 
So ! As played, so won ! 
And as 'twas won, so 'twill be paid. 

Saladin (to Sittah). 

What says he ? 

Sittah (occasionally signing to Al-Hafi). 
You know him ; know he likes to make objections, 
And to be urged ; is e'en a trifle jealous. 

Saladin. 
But not of you ? Not of my sister ? — Hafi, 
What hear I of you ? Jealous ? 

Al-Hafi. 

May be so. 
I would I had her mind ; were good as she. 

Sittah. 
Still, he has always paid me honestly ; 
To-day, too, will he pay. Trust him. — Go, Hafi I 
I'll send and fetch the money. 

Al-Hafi. 

No ; I play 
This farce with you no more. He must be told. 

Saladin. 
Who? What? 



60 NATHAN THE WISE. 

SlTTAH. 

Al-Hafi, keep you thus your word ? 
Is this your promise ? 

Al-Hafi. 

How could I suppose 
You'd carry it so far ? 

Saladin. 

Shall I learn naught ? 

Sittah. 
I pray you, Han, be discreet. 

Saladin. 

Tis strange ! 
Does Sittah pray so earnestly, so warmly 
A stranger's and a dervise's forbearance, 
Rather than mine, her brother's ? I command, 
Al-Hafi ! Dervise, speak ! 

Sittah. 

Let not a trifle 
Disturb you, brother, more than it deserves. 
You know that many times I've won from you 
This same amount at chess ; and since the money 
To me was useless now, and Han's chest 
Had none too much of it, I left it there. 
But have no fear, for neither you, my brother, 
Nor Han, nor the treasury, shall keep it. 

Al-Hafi. 

Ah, if that were but all ! 



NATE AX THE WISE. £j 

SlTTAH. 

With more such trifles. 
The allowance once you granted me, that too 
Has in the treasury been left : some months 
It has been left undrawn. 

Al-Hafi. 

E'en that's not all. 

Saladin. 
Not all ? Speak out, then ! 

Al-Hafi. 

Since we've been expecting 
The gold from Egypt, she — 

Sittah (to Saladin). 

Why listen to him ? 

Al-Hafi. 
Not only drew no money, but — 

Saladin. 

Advanced 
Her own? — not so ! 

Al-Hafi. 

Supported the whole court. 
Herself alone defrayed your whole expense. 

Saladin {embracing her). 
My own true sister ! 



62 NATHAN THE WISE. 

SlTTAH. 

Who but you, my brother, 
Had made me rich enough to do so much? 

Al-Hafi. 

And now is making her as poor, as beggared 
As he himself. 

Saladix. 
I poor? Her brother poor? 
When had I more — when less ? A cloak, a sword, 
A horse — and God ! What need I more ? In these, 
When can I want ? Yet could I chide you, Hail. 

Sittah. 
Nay, chide not, brother. Could I but relieve 
Our father's needs as well ! 

Saladin. 

Ah, there you dash 

My happiness again. I, for myself, 

Want nothing — cannot want. But he — he wants ; 

And in him, want Ave all. What shall I do ? 

It may be long before the gold arrives 

From Egypt. Why so great delay, God knows. 

All's quiet there. I will economize, 

Will save, submit to aught that but concerns 

Myself, and brings no suffering on others. 

But what avails it all ? A horse, a cloak, 

A sword — these must I have ; and with my God 

There is no cheapening. ■ Little enough it is 



NATHAN TIJS WISE. 63 

Contents him now — my heart. I counted much 
Upon your treasury's overplus, Al-Hafi. 

Al-Hafi. 
My overplus ? Confess yourself, empaling, 
Or strangling at the least, had been my doom, 
If any overplus you'd caught me in. 
A fraud, indeed, had been a safer venture. 

Saladix. 
What's to be done? — Was there, then, none but 

Sittah 
To borrow of? 

Sittah. 
Would I that privilege, 
My brother, have relinquished ? Still I claim it. 
Still not quite to the bottom am I drained. 

Saladix. 

Not quite ! That's worst of all. — Take instant 

measures ; 
Get gold of whom you can, and as you can ; 
Go, borrow — promise ! Only borrow not 
Of those made rich by me : such borrowing 
Were asking back my gifts. Seek the most greedy : 
They readiest lend to me ; for they have learned 
How in my hands their gold accumulates. 

Al-Hafi. 
I know none such. 



64 NATHAN THE WISE. 

SlTTAH. 

I just bethink me, Han, 
I heard your friend was back again. 

Al-Hafi (embarrassed). 

My friend? 
Who may he be ? 

Sittah. 
That much-praised Jew of yours. 

Al-Hafi. 
A much-praised Jew — of mine ? 

Sittah. 

Endowed by God, — 
I well remember yet the words you used 
In speaking of him, — one endowed by God 
In fullest measure with the least and greatest 
Of all this world's possessions. 

Al-Hafi. 

Said I so ? 
What could such words have meant ? 

Sittah. 

The least is riches ; 
The greatest, wisdom. 

Al-Hafi. 

Of a Jew ? What Jew 
Could words like those have fitted ? 



NATHAN THE WISE, 65 

SlTTAH. 

Not your Nathan ? 
Al-Hafi. 
Ah, Nathan — yes ; I had not thought of him. 
Is he indeed come back again at last ? 
Things must have prospered with him then. 'Tis 

true, 
The people called him once the Wise — and Rich. 

Sittah. 
Now more than ever call they him the Rich. 
The city rings with stories of the jewels, 
The treasures he has brought. 

Al-Hafi. 

So then the Rich 
He is again, and soon will be the Wise. 

Sittah. 
What say you to approaching him, Al-Hafi ? 

Al-Hafi. 
For what ? You do not mean to borrow ? Ah, 
There you mistake him. Nathan lend ! Therein 
Consists his wisdom, that he lends to none. 

Sittah. 
Another picture of him once you drew. 

Al-Hafi. 
He'd lend you merchandise at need ; but monfey, 
His money, never ! Otherwise a Jew, 
6* 



66 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Whose like is rarely found among his people. 
He has intelligence, knows how to live, 
Is strong at chess. But he excels the rest 
In evil as in good. Count not on him. 
'Tis true, he gives the poor. A match he is 
For Saladin, in giving. Not as much, 
Perhaps, but just as gladly — just as free 
From all distinction. Mussulman, Parsee, 
The Christian, or the Jew, all one to him. 

SlTTAH. 

And such a man — 

Saladin. 
How can I ne'er have heard 
Of such a man till now ! 

Sittah. 
Would he not lend 
To Saladin — to Saladin, who spends 
For others only, not himself? 

Al-Hafi. 

. There shows 
The Jew again — the ordinary Jew. 
My word for it, so envious he is, 
So jealous of your giving ! No " God bless you Y l 
In all the world, but he'd have said to him. 
He therefore lends to none, lest he should lose 
The means of giving. Charity his law 
Commands, but it commands not courtesy ; 
And thus through charity is he become 



NATHAN THE WISE. 6 J 

The most discourteous neighbor in the world. 
'Tis true, we've not been on good terms of late ; 
But think me not for that unjust to him. 
In all else is he good, but not to lend : 
Trust me he's not. — Til knock at other doors. 
I just bethink me of a Moor who's rich 
And miserly. — I go ! I go ! 

Sittar. 

What haste, 
Al-Hafi? 

Saladin. 
Let him go : nay 3 let him go ! 



Scene III. 

SlTTAH. SaLADIX. 

Sit t ah. 
He hurries off as he were glad to escape. 
What means it ? Has he been himself deceived, 
Or would he mislead us ? 

Saladix. 

Why ask of me ? 
I hardly know of whom you spoke. This Nathan, 
This Jew of yours, I never heard his name 
Until to-day. *. 



68 NATHAN THE WISE. 

SlTTAH. 

How is it possible 
You never heard of one of whom 'tis said 
He .has explored the graves of Solomon 
And David, and by certain magic words 
Can loose their seals ? And further, that from them 
He brings to light of day, from time to time, 
That boundless wealth which speaks no lesser source. 

Saladin. 
If 'tis from graves this man derives his wealth, 
'Tis surely not from Solomon's or David's, 
But from the graves of fools ! 

Sittah. 

Or knaves ! Besides, 
More yielding are the sources of his wealth 
Than such a mammon-pit ; exhaustless are they. 

Saladin. 
He trades, you say. 

Sittah. 

His beasts of burden toil 
On ever} 7 highway and through every desert ; 
In every harbor lie his ships. Al-Hafi 
So told me once, and rapturously added 
How generously, nobly would his friend 
Employ the wealth he had not thought too mean 
To labor for with hand and brain : he added, 
How free from prejudice his spirit was, 



NATHAN THE WISE. 69 

How open was his heart to every virtue, 
With all things beautiful in sympathy. 

Saladin. 
Yet now Al-Hafi spoke so doubtfully, 
So coldly of him! 

Sittah. 

Coldly ? — no ; embarrassed. 
As deemed he it were dangerous to praise, 
Yet would not censure undeservedly. 
Or is it that the best among his people 
Can never quite escape the Jew ; that here 
Is Han disappointed in his friend ? 
But be he what he may — more than a Jew 
Or less — is he but rich, enough for us. 

Saladin. 
You surely would not take his gold from him 
By violence, dear sister ! 

Sittah. 
Violence ? 
What call you violence ? by fire and sword ? 
No, no ; against the weak what force is needed 
Save their own weakness ? — Come with me awhile 
Into my harem ; you must hear a singer 
I bought me yesterday. I've a design 
On Nathan shall meanwhile be ripening. Come ! 



JO NATHAN THE WISE. 



Scene IV. 



Near the palms before Nathan's house. Recha and 
Nathan come from the house. Data joins them. 

Recha. 
Why have you been so long in coming, father ? 
You scarce will find him now. 

Nathan. 

Well, well ; if here 
No more, no longer 'neath these palms, yet else- 
where. 
Be tranquil. See, comes there not Daja to us ? 

Recha. 
She's lost him, I am sure. 

Nathan. 

Perhaps not, Recha. 

Recha. 
She'd come more quickly else. 

Nathan. 

She may not see us. . . . 

Recha. 
She sees us now. 

Nathan. 
And hurries forward. Look ! 
Be calm — be quiet ! 



NATHAN THE WISE. 7 I 

Recha. 
Would you want a child 
Who could be calm, — who could be unconcerned 
For one whose bravery was her life — the life 
She values only as it came from you ? 

Nathan. 
I would not have you other than you are ; 
Not though I read a something in your soul 
You will not name. 

Recha. 
What, father ? 

Nathan, 

Do you ask — 
Ask me so timidly ? Whatever be stirred 
Within you, 'tis but innocence and nature. 
Fear not. I have no fear. But promise me — 
If e'er your heart declare itself more plainly, 
No wish of it shall be concealed from me. 

Recha. 
You make me tremble but to think my heart 
Could ever wish concealment from my father. 

Nathan. 
Enough ; 'tis once for all agreed between us.— 
See, here is Daja ! — Well ? 

Data. 

He's walking yet 
Beneath the palms, just hid by yonder wall. 
Look, there he is ! 



72 NATHAN THE WISE, 

Recha. 
Ah, see ! He hesitates. 
Will he go on or back, to right or left ? 

Daja. 

No, no ; he's sure to take again the path 
Around the cloister, and must pass this way. 

Recha. 
Right, right ! Say, have you spoken with him to- 
day? 
How is he ? 

Daja. 
Just as always. 

Nathan. 

Have a care 
He does not see you. Better further back ; — 
Or safest in~the Jhouse. 

Recha. 

But one look more ! 
Alas, the hedge that steals him from me ! 

Daja. 

Come ! 
Your father's right. He might turn back at once, 
Should he behold you. Come 1 

Recha. 

Ah me, that hedge! 



NATHAN THE WISE. 73 

Nathan. 
And should he suddenly emerge from it, 
He could not fail to see you. Go, then — go ! 

Data. 
Come, come with me ; I'll take you to a window, 
Whence we may watch them unobserved. Come ! 

• Recha. 

Yes? 
[Both into the house. 



Scene V. 
Nathan. Soon afterward the Templar. 

Nathan. 
I almost dread to meet this strange Unknown ; 
I almost shrink before his rugged virtue. 
Strange that one man can make his fellow-man 
Thus ill at ease ! — Ah, there he comes.By heaven I 
A manly youth. That brave, defiant look, 
I like it well — that solid tread. The shell 
Alone is bitter ; surely not the kernel. 
Where have I seen one like him ? — Noble Frank, 
Forgive me — 

Templar. 
What? 

Nathan. 
Permit me — 



74 nathan the wise. 

Templar. 

What, Jew, what? 
Nathan. 
That I presume to address you. 

Templar. 

Can I help it? 
Be brief ! 

Nathan. 
Forgive, and hurry not so proudly, 
With such contempt, past one whom you have bound 
Unto yourself forever. 

Templar. 
How is that ? 
Ah, I can guess. You are — 

Nathan. 

My name is Nathan ; 
I'm father of the maiden whom you saved 
So generously from the fire. I come — 

Templar. 
If 'tis to thank me, you may spare yourself. 
Too many thanks have I endured already 
For such a trifle. Nothing do you owe me. 
How did I know the maiden was your daughter ? 
It is the Templar's duty to assist 
The first, the best whose need he sees. Besides, 
My life was at that moment hateful to me. 
I gladly seized the opportunity 



NATHAN THE WISE. *]$ 

To risk it for another — for another, 
Though but a Jewess. 

Nathan. 

It is nobly spoken — 
Offensively and nobly. Yet I read 
Your motive. Modest greatness shields itself 
Behind offensive words from admiration. 
But if it scorn the tribute of our praise, 
Is there none other less contemptible ? 
Knight, were you not a prisoner here, a stranger, 
I should not be thus bold. Command me — speak ! 
What service can be done you ? 

Templar. 

None by you. 

Nathan. 
Yet I am rich. 

Templar. 
To me the richest Jew 
Was ne'er the best. 

Nathan. 
Might you not still employ 
That better which he has — employ his wealth ? 

Templar. 
Good ; there I will not wholly say you nay— 
E'en for my mantle's sake. When thris be worn 
To tatters, so that neither shred nor stitch 
Will hold together longer, I will come 



76 NATHAN THE WISE. 

And borrow cloth or money for a new one. — 

Look not so troubled. You are safe a while. 

'Tis not yet come to that. See, it is still 

In tolerable condition. Only here 

It has an ugly spot ; this end was scorched. 

But lately did it happen, as I bore 

Your daughter through the fire. 

Nathan {taking hold of the corner and looking at il) % 

Strange that a burn, 
An ugly spot like that, should bear this man 
A better testimony than his lips ! — 
Might I but kiss it — kiss the spot ! Ah, pardon, 
'Twas unawares. 

Templar. 
What? 

Nathan. 

That a tear fell on it. 

Templar. 
No matter, it has had such drops before. 
(I soon shall grow confused before this Jew.) 

Nathan. 
Might I request the further favor of you, 
That you would send your mantle to my daughter ? 

Templar. 
What would she with it ? 



NATHAN THE WISE. 



77 



Nathan. 

That her lips may press 
The spot, since to embrace your knees, in vain 
Is her desire. 

Templar. 
But, Jew — your name is Nathan ? 
But, Nathan — you have spoken well, and sharply. 
I know not what to answer. Surely — I — 

Nathan. 
Disguise yourself, dissemble as you will. 
Here too I've found you out. You were too good, 
Too honorable to be more polite. 
A girl, all sentiment — her waiting woman, 
All eagerness to serve — her father absent — 
You cared for her good name ; fled from her gaze — ■ 
Fled that you might not conquer. Further cause 
For thanks. 

Templar. 
I must confess you know the motives 
That ought to be a Templar's. 

Nathan. 

But a Templar's ? 
Ought only — and because his Order bids ? 
I know a good man's motives, and I know 
Good men are everywhere. 

Templar. 

With no distinction ? 



78 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Nathan. 
Distinguished by their color, form, and dress. 

Templar. 
Not more or less in one place than another ? 

Nathan. 
All such distinctions are of small account. 
The great man everywhere needs ample space : 
Too many, closely planted, dash themselves 
Against each other. Average ones, like us, 
Stand everywhere in crowds. But let not one 
. Cast slurs upon the others. Knots and gnarls 
Must live on friendly terms. One little peak 
Must not take airs, as 'twere the only one 
Not sprung from earth. 

Templar. 
Well said ! But know you, Nathan, 
What people practised first this casting slurs — 
What people were the first to call themselves 
The chosen people ? How if I — not hate, 
Indeed — but cannot help despising them 
For all their pride,- — a pride which has descended 
To Mussulman and Christian, — that their God 
Must be the one true Cod ? You start to hear 
Such- words from me, a Christian and a Templar. 
When, where, has this fanaticism of having 
The better God, and forcing him as best 
On all the world, e'er showed itself in colors 



NATHAN THE WISE. jg 

More black than here and now ? Who here and now 
Feels not his eyes unsealed — But be he blind 
Who will ! — Forget what I have said, and leave me. 

[Going. 

Nathan. 

You know not how much closer you have drawn me. 
We must, we must be friends ! Despise my people 
With all your heart. We neither chose our people. 
Are we our people? What does "people" mean? 
Is Jew or Christian rather Jew or Christian 
Than man ? May I have found in you another 
Who is content to be esteemed a man ! 

Templar. 
You have, by heaven, you have ! Your hand ! I blush 
That for a moment I should have misjudged you. 

Nathan. 

And I am proud ; for 'tis the vulgar only 
That rarely is misjudged. 

Templar. 

And but the rare 
That's not forgotten. Nathan, yes, we must, 
We must indeed be friends. 

Nathan. 

Are so already. 
How Recha will rejoice ! And ah, how bright 
The future opens to me ! Only know her ! 



80 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Templar. 
I'm burning with impatience. Who is this 
Comes running from your house — is it not Daja ? 

Nathan. 
Tis she — but why so troubled ? 

Templar. 

Oh, may naught 
Have happened to our Recha ! 







Scene VI. 






The preceding. Daja enters 


hastily. 






Daja. 








Nathan, 


Nathan ! 






Nathan. 




Well? 




Daja. 






Pardon 


me that I disturb you 
Nathan. 


p knight. 


What 


is it? 


Templar. 






What? 





jstathan the wise. 8 1 

Daja. 

The Sultan sends. 
The Sultan wants to see you. Oh, good heaven ! 
The Sultan ! 

Nathan. 
Me ? — the Sultan ? He desires 
To see what novelties I've brought ; but tell him 
That little — nothing has been yet unpacked. 

Daja. 
Naught will he see ; he wants to speak with you, 
With you in person, soon, as soon as may be. 

Nathan. 
I come. Go, go ! 

Daja. 
Be not displeased, dread knight 
We're so concerned to know the Sultan's pleasure ! 

Nathan. 
That will be known in time. Go, leave us now 1 



Scene VII. 

Nathan and the Templar. 

Templar. 
Then know you him not personally yet ? 



82 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Nathan. 
The Sultan ? No. I've neither shunned nor sought 

him. 
The common fame spoke far too well of him 
For me not rather to believe than see. 
But now — though that be false, his saving of youf 

life— 

Templar. 
Yes ; that at least is true. I hold my life 
But as his gift. 

Nathan. 
He granted me with that 
A double, threefold life. That changes all 
Between us ; throws a sudden net about me 
Which binds me to his service evermore. 
Scarce can I wait to learn his first commands. 
I am prepared for all ; and will confess 
I am so for your sake. 

Templar. 

Oft as I've met him 
I've found no way to thank him yet myself. 
The impression that I made upon him came 
A.s suddenly as suddenly it passed. 
It may be he remembers me no more : 
Yet once at least he must remember me, 
To speak my final sentence. Not enough 
That I exist at his command ; have life 



NATHAN THE WISE. 8$ 

But by his will : he must decide whose will 
Shall guide my life. 

Nathan. 
True : I will haste the more. 
Some word may furnish opportunity 
To speak of you. Permit me — pardon — I haste. 
When will you come to us ? 

Templar 

Whene'er I may. 

Nathan. 
Whene'er you will. 

Templar. 
To-day, then. 

Nathan. 

And your name, 
I pray you ? 

Templar. 

Was — is Curd von Stauffen. Curd ! 

Nat h ax. 
Von Stauffen — Stauffen ? 

Templar. 
Does the name surprise you ? 

Nat h ax. 
Von Stauffen ? Many of that name have here — 



84 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Templar. 
Oh yes ; full many here have lived and died. 
My uncle — father — But why fix your eyes 
With such a growing eagerness upon me ? 

Nathan. ■ 
Oh, nothing, nothing ! Can I e'er be weary 
Of gazing on you ? 

Templar. 
Then I leave you first. 
The seeker's eye not seldom has discovered 
Mere than the seeker wished. I dread it, Nathan. 
Let time, not curiosity, cement 
Our friendship. [He goes. 

Nathan. 
Oft the seeker's eye discovers 
More than he wished. — He seemed to read my souL 
That might befall me here. — 'Tis not alone 
Wolfs gait, Wolfs figure, but his voice as well. 
Exactly so would Wolf throw back his head ; 
So carried Wolf his sword ; so Wolf would shade 
His brow to hide the flashing of his eyes. 
How such deep-printed images will slumber 
Within us,, till a word, a sound awakes them ! 
Von Stauffen — that was it. Filneck and Stauffen. 
Of this I must know more, and presently. 
But first to Saladin. — Who's listening there? 
Is it not Daja ? Come, come nearer, Daja. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 85 

Scene VIII, 
Daja. Nathan. 

Nathan. 
What is it ? Ah, the weight on both your hearts 
Is not what Saladin would have with me. 

Daja. 
You cannot blame her for it. At the moment 
Your converse with him grew more intimate, 
The Sultan's message drove us from the window. 

Nathan. 
Tell her she may expect him every moment. 

Daja. 
In truth ? 

Nathan. 

May I depend upon you, Daja ? 
Be on your guard, I pray you. You will ne'er 
Have reason to repent it. E'en your conscience 
Will find account in it. Disturb me not 
In what I plan. In all you ask and tell, 
Use caution and reserve. 

Daja. 

That you should think 
I needed to be warned ! I go : go you ! 
For see, there surely comes from Saladin 
A second messenger — your dervise, Han. [Goes. 

3 



M 



NATHAN THE WISE. 



Scene IX. 
Nathan. Al-Hafi. 

Al-Hafi. 

Ha ; ha ! I'm just in search of you again. 

Nathan. 
Is it so urgent ? What's his will with me ? 

Al-Hafi. 
Whose ? 

Nathan. 

Saladin's. — I come ; I come. 

Al-Hafi. 

To whom ? 

To Saladin ? 

Nathan. 
Did Saladin not send you ? 

Al-Hafi. 
No. Has he sent before ? 

Nathan. 

He has indeed. 

Al-Hafi. 
It is decided then. 

Nathan. 
What ? What's decided ? 



nathan the wise. 8 j 

Al-Hafi. 
That — I am not to blame ; God knows I'm not. 
What tales have I not told of you, what lies, 
To avert it ? 

Nathan. 
What to avert ? What is decided ? 

Al-Hafi. 
That you're his treasurer. I pity you. 
At least I'll not stay by to see. I go ; 
I go this hour. You know already whither, 
And know the way. Have you commands for me 
Upon the road ? Speak ! I am at your service. 
But order nothing more than can be carried 
Upon a naked back. Speak quick ! I'm off ! 

Nathan. 
Bethink yourself, Al-Hafi ; pray, consider 
That I know nothing yet. What means your talk ? 

Al-Hafi. 
Best take the bags with you at once. 

Nathan. 

The bags ? 

Al-Hafi. 
The gold you're to advance to Saladin. 

Nathan. 
So that is all ? 



88 nathan the wise. 

Al-Hafi. 
Shall I look on and see 
How he will drain your marrow day by day, 
Down to the very toes ; look on and see 
How his extravagance will borrow, borrow, 
And borrow from those barns ne'er emptied yet 
By your wise charities, till the poor mouse 
That had its birth there shall be starved to death ? 
Do you imagine he who needs your gold 
Will take your counsel also ? He take counsel ! 
Took Saladin e'er counsel ? Hear what happened 
When last I went to him. 

Nathan. 
Well? 

Al-Hafi. 

I arrived 
When Sittah and himself had been at chess. 
His sister plays not badly. There the game 
That Saladin had given up for lost 
Was standing on the board. I glanced at it, 
And saw that it was far from lost. 

Nathan. 

Aha! 
A great discovery for you. 

Al-Hafi. 
His king 
But needed to advance upon the pawn 
Against her check. If I could only show you ! 



nathan the wise. 89 

Nathan. 
I'll take your word for it. 

Al-Hafi 

For so the rook 
Were brought into the field, and she were lost. 
All that I wished to show, and called him. — Think I 

Nathan. 
He was not of your mind ? 

Al-Hafi. 

He would not listen ; 
Contemptuously overturned the board. 

Nathan. 
Is't possible ? 

Al-Hafi. 
And said he would be mated. 
He would be mated ! Do you call that playing ? 

Nathan. 
Hardly indeed ; 'tis playing with the game. 

Al-Hafi. 
And that for no mean stake. 

Nathan. 

Gold here, gold there I 
That is the least. But not to listen to you 
8* 



90 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Upon a point so weighty — not to listen, 
And not admire your eagle eye — that, that 
Cries out for vengeance — does it not ? 

Al-Hafi. 

Nay, nay; 
I do but tell you this to show the man. 
I'm at the end of all my patience with him. 
Here must I run about 'mongst dirty Moors, 
And ask who'll lend him. I who for myself 
Have never begged, must borrow now for others. 
To borrow scarce is better than to beg ; 
As lending, lending upon interesc, 
Scarce better is than stealing. With my Ghebers 
Beside the Ganges have I need of neither, 
And need not to become the tool of either. 
Beside the Ganges only are there men. 
Here none but you is worthy of the life 
Beside the Ganges. Will you come with me ? 
Leave all your trumpery at once for him. 
That he's so anxious for. By small degrees 
He'd have it out of you. Thus would the torment 
At once be ended. I will get your delk. * 
Come, come ! 

Nathan. 
That deemed I always open to us. 
Yet I'll consider it, Al-Hafi. Wait — ■ 

* The garb of a dervise. 



XATHAS THE WISE. 9] 

Al-Hafi. 

Consider it ! No, no ; 'tis not a matter 
To be considered. 

Nathan. 
Only till I've seen 
The Sultan — only till I've said farewell — 

Al-Hafi. 
He who considers does but seek excuse 
For lack of courage. Y\ no cannot resolve 
Upon the instant for himself to live, 
Remains forevermore the slave of others. 
Do as you will ! — Farewell ! — As you think best ! 
Here lies my road, there yours. 

Nathan. 

Al-Hafi, stay ! 
You'll settle your affairs before you go ? 

Al-Hafi. 

Oh, pshaw ! The treasury holds nought worth count- 
ing. 
And for my own affairs — why, you or Sittah 
Must be my bail. Farewell ! [Goes. 

Nathan. 

IT1 be your bail. 
Wild, noble, good — how shall I call him ? Truly, 
The genuine beggar is the only king. 



Q2 NATHAN THE WISE. 



\CT THIRD. 



Scene I. 
Room in Nathan's house. Recha. Daja. 

Recha. 
Tell me my father's words again, dear Daja. 
Said he I might expect him every moment. 
Does it not sound as if he'd soon be here ? 
And yet how many moments have gone by 
Since then ! Ah well, who thinks of them, the past? 
I'll only live in every coming moment. 
The one that brings him must be here at last. 

Daja. 

Oh that unlucky message from the Sultan ! 

Else Nathan would have brought him in that instant. 

Recha. 
And were it here — that moment ; were the warmest, 
The fondest of my wishes now fulfilled — 
What then — -what then ? 

Daja. 
What then ? Then should I hope 
My warmest wish might also be fulfilled. 



nathan the wise. 93 

Recha. 
What would supply the place within my breast, 
Which swells no longer, uninspired by one 
Supreme desire ? W T hat ? Nothing ? Ah, I tremble, 

Data. 
My wish shall take the place of yours fulfilled — 
To know you are in Europe, and in hands 
Deserving of you. 

Recha. 
You're mistaken, Daja. 
The motive that inspires that wish in you 
Prevents it in myself. Your fatherland 
Allures you ; and shall mine, shall mine not hold 

me? 
Shall images of home, unfaded yet 
Within your soul, have greater power than home, 
With all that I can see, and touch, and hear ? 

Daja. 

Resist with all your will — the ways of Heaven 
Are still the ways of Heaven. How if through him 
W 7 ho saved your life, his God for whom he fights 
Would lead you to the land and to the people 
For which your birth designed you ? 

Recha. 

Daja, Daja ! 
What mean such words? What strange conceits 
you have ! 



94 NATHAN THE WISE. 

"His God— for whom he fights!" Can God be 

owned ? 
What sort of God were he whom man could own — 
Who needs defenders ? How can any tell 
The spot of earth for which his birth designed 

him, 
If not the spot on which it placed him ? — Daja, 
What if my father heard such words from you ! 
What has he done that you should always paint 
My happiness so far removed from him ? 
What has he done that you desire to mix 
The seeds of understanding he has sown 
So pure within my soul, with weeds or flowers 
From your own distant land ? You know, dear 

Daja, 
He'll none of your gay flowers upon my soil. 
I, too, confess I feel my soil is weakened, 
Exhausted by your flowers, e'en though they grace it ; 
And in their sweet, intoxicating fragrance 
I grow bewildered, giddy. You, dear Daja, 
Are more accustomed to it. No reproach 
Upon the stronger nerves that can endure it ; 
Only it suits not me. — Your angel now ; — 
My head was well-nigh turned with it. I blush 
E'en now, before my father, at such nonsense. 

Daja. 
Nonsense ! As if here only there were sense ! 
Oh. if I might but speak ! 



nathan the wise. 93 

RechA. 

And may you not ? 
When was I not all ear to hear you tell 
Of Christian heroes often as you would ? 
When gave I not their deeds my admiration, 
Their sufferings my tears ? True, their belief 
I never held their greatest heroism ; 
But all the more consoling was the lesson 
That faith in God depends not on the views 
We entertain of Him. That has my father 
So often told us ; and yourself, dear Daja, 
Have oft confirmed it. Why desire alone 
To undermine what both have helped to build ? — 
But 'twere not well that we should meet our friend 
With talk like this. And yet for me it is. 
To me it matters infinitely whether — 
Hark, Daja ! Comes not some one to the door? 
If it were he ! Hark, hark ! 



Scene IT. 

Recha, Daja, and the Templar, for whom the door is 
opened, with the words — " Be pleased to enter/' 

Recha {starts back, recovers herself and is about to 
threw herself at his feef). 

Tis he-— 'tis my preserver ! Ah ! 



96 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Templar. 

Thus late 
I came to shun a scene like this ; and yet — 

Recha. 
Here at the feet of this proud man, once more 
Will I give thanks to God, ■ — not to the man. 
The man desires no thanks, — desires as little 
As does the water-bucket, kept so busy 
In putting out the flames. 'Twas filled and emptied 
In total apathy. So with the man. 
Like that, he was but thrust into the fire ; 
By accident I fell into his arms ; 
There lay by accident within his arms, 
E'en as a spark might lie upon his mantle, 
Till something — what I know not — threw us both 
Beyond the flames. What cause for thanks in that? 
Wine urges men to other deeds in Europe. — 
'Twas but a Templar's duty. They, like dogs 
Of somewhat higher training, have to fetch 
From fire as well as water. 

Templar {who has been gazing on her with surprise 
and disquiet), 

Daja, Daja ! 
If moments of distress and bitterness 
Had made me harsh with you, why bring to her 
Each foolish word that might escape my lips ? 
'Twas taking a too cruel vengeance, Daja. 
Henceforth I hope for kindlier intercession. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 97 

Daja. 
Scarce think I, knight, these little stings of yours, 
Flung at her heart, have harmed your cause with her, 

Recha. 

Had you a grief, and were you of your grief 
Less generous than of life ? 

Templar. 

Kind, gracious maiden ! 
How is my soul divided betwixt eye 
And ear ! Not this the maiden that I saved — 
It cannot, cannot be ; for who had known her 
And not have saved her ? who would wait for me ? 
'Tis true — that fear — deforms. 

[He pauses, lost in contemplation of her. 



To be the same. 



Recha. 

Yet I find you 



[Another pause, until, to rouse him from his absir 'ac- 
tion , she continues~\ 

But you must tell us, knight, 
Where you have been so long. Where are you now ? 
I might almost have asked. 

Templar. 

I am, perhaps — 
Where I ought not to be. 



98 NATHAN TEE WISE. 

Recha. 

And where have been? 
Also, perhaps, where you should not have been ? 
That is not well. 

Templar. 
On — on — what is the mountain ? 
On Sinai. 

Recha. 
Sinai ? Ah, I'm glad ; for now 
Can I learn surely if 'tis true — 

Templar. 

What— what ? 
If it be true that there the spot is shown 
Where in God's presence Moses stood, when-^ 

Recha. 

No; 
Not that. Where'er he stood, 'twas in God's presence, 
Besides, I know enough of that already. 
I only wanted you to tell me if — 
If it were true there's much less weariness 
In climbing up that mountain than descending. 
With all the mountains I have ever climbed 
'Twas just the contrary. — Well, knight, how now? 
You turn away — you will not look at me ! 

Templar. 
I would the better hear you. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 99 

Recha. 

You would hide 
Your smiles at my simplicity, — your smiles 
That no more worthy question can I ask 
About that holy mountain, — would you not? 

Templail 

Then must I look again into your eyes. 
Ah, now you cast them down — conceal your smiles ! 
When I would read in features full of riddles 
What I distinctly hear, will you disguise them ? 
Ah, Recha, truly said he, "Only know her I" 

Recha. 
Who said — of whom — to you ? 

Templar. 

Your father's words 
To me in speaking of you — "Only know her I" 

Data. 
Did I not say it ? Did not also I ? 

Templar. 
But where is he, your father ? Stays he yet 
W T ith Saladin ? 

Recha. 
No doubt. 

Templar. 

So long ? Ah no : 
Forgetful that I am ! he's there no longer ; 



IOO NATHAN TIIE WISE. 

But by the convent yonder waits for me. 
So, I am sure, it was agreed between us. 
Permit me, I will go, will bring him. 

Data. 

Nay; 
Leave that to me. Stay, stay, knight ! I will bring 

him 
Without delay. 

Templar. 
Not so, not so. Myself, 
Not you, is he expecting. And, besides, 
He may — who knows ? — he may with Saladin — 
You do not know the Sultan ! — may perchance 
Have met with difficulties. There is danger, 
Believe me, there is danger if I stay. 

Recha. 
What danger ? 

Templar. 

Danger to myself, to you, 

To him, unless I quickly, quickly go, [Goes. 



Scene III. 
Recha and Data. 

Recha. 
What means it, Daja ? Why so quick to leave us ? 
What sudden thought could thus have urged him off? 



nathan the wise. 101 

Daja. 
Let be — let be. I hold it no bad sign. 

Recha. 
A sign — of what ? 

Daja. 
Something's astir within : 
'Tis boiling, and must not be let boil over. 
Let him alone. 'Tis your turn now. 

Recha. 

My turn ? 
You're unintelligible, like himself. 

Daja. 
Soon the disquietude he made you suffer 
You can requite him. Only, show yourself 
Not too severe, too unrelenting towards him. 

Recha. 
I know not even of what you're talking, Daja* 

Daja. 
So calm again ? 

Recha. 
I am ; indeed I am. 

Daja. 
Confess at least that his disquietude 
Rejoices you, and that to it you owe 
Whate'er you have of calm. 
9* 



102 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Recha. 

Not consciously. 
The most I could confess would be my wonder 
That suddenly the storm within my heart 
Should be succeeded by so deep a stillness. 
His whole appearance, conversation, bearing — 

Data. 
So soon have satisfied ? 

Recha. 

Not satisfied. 
No ; far from that— 

Data. 
But stilled your hungry longing : 

Recha. 
If you will have it so. 

Data. 
Not I indeed. 

Recha. 
He will be always dear to me, far dearer 
Than life itself; though at his name my pulse 
No longer varies, and my heart no longer 
Beats harder, faster when I think of him. — 
What nonsense am I talking ? Come, dear Daja, 
We'll seek again the window toward the palms, 

Daja. 
'Tis not then wholly stilled, that hungry longing. 



NATHAN THE WISE. IO3 

Recha. 
Once more shall I behold the palms again ; 
Not only him beneath. 

Data. 

This coldness then 
Portends new fever. 

Recha. 
Coldness ? I'm not cold. 
With equal pleasure do I look, though calmly. 



Scene IV. 
Audience hall in Saladiri s palace. Saladin. Sittah. 

Saladin {speaking to some one without as he enters). 

Admit the Jew the moment he arrives. 
He's not disposed to hurry, it would seem. 

Sittah. 
He was not there perhaps, in instant reach. 

Saladin. 
O sister, sister ! 

Sittah. 
One would say a battle 
Were threatening you. 



I0+ NATHAN THE WISE. 

Saladix. 

One to be waged with weapons 
I never learned to use. I must dissemble ; 
Create uneasiness ; lay snares ; entice 
On slippery ways. When could I ever that? 
Where learned I ever that ? And all for what — 
For what ? To fish for money — all for money ! 
To frighten money from a Jew — for money ! 
To such mean shifts am I reduced at last 
To get the least of trifles ! 

Sittah. 

Every trifle, 
Unduly scorned, will be revenged, dear brother. 

Saladin. 
Alas, too true. But now suppose this Jew 
Should be the wise good man the dervise once 
Described him. 

Sittah. 

If he should ! Where lies the harm ? 
The usurious, careful, timid Jew alone 
The snare is laid for — not the wise, good man. 
He without snares were ours. What joy to hear 
How such a man would extricate himself! 
The downright force that would the meshes break, 
Or crafty cunning that would disentangle — 
This pleasure will be all to boot. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 105 

Saladin. 

That's true. 
It were a joy indeed. 

Sittah. 
There can arise 
Naught further to disturb you. Is he one 
Of many — just a Jew like any Jew ? 
To such a one why be ashamed to seem 
What he believes all men to be ? Nay, more ; 
Who should appear aught other ; were to him 
A fool, a dolt. 

Saladin. 
I must act meanly, therefore, 
Lest I be meanly thought of by the mean. 

Sittah. 
If mean you call it, dealing with each thing 
According to its nature. 

Saladin. 
What contrivance 
Of woman's brain will she not palliate ! 

Sittah. 
Not palliate ? 

Saladin. 
My clumsy hands, I fear, 
Will break this keen and subtle thing. It needs 
To be conducted as 'twas first conceived, 



106 NATHAN THE WISE. 

With all dexterity and cunning-. Well, 
I can but try ! I'll dance as best I may : 
And yet would rather it were worse then better. 

Sittah. 
Trust not yourself too little. Do but will ! 
I'll answer for you. See how men like you 
Delight to make us think that with the sword, 
The sword alone, you have achieved so much ! 
The lion is ashamed, if with the fox 
He've hunted — of the fox, not of the craft. 

Saladin. 
And how you women like to bring men down 
To your own level ! Go, go ; leave me now ; 
I know my lesson. 

Sittah. 
Leave you — must I go ? 

Saladin. 
You had not thought to stay ? 

Sittah. 

If not to stay — 
Not in your sight — yet in the adjoining room. 

Saladin. 
That you may listen ? If I'm to succeed, 
That neither, sister. — Go ! the curtain stirs. 
He comes ! — Remain not near ; I'll see to it. 

[As she leaves by one door, Nathan enters by another ', 
and Saladin seats himself. ] 



&ATHAN THE WISE. 107 

Scene V. 
Saladix and Nathan. 

Saladin. 
Come nearer, Jew, come nearer ! — without fear ! 

Nathan 
Tis for your foes to fear ! 

Saladin. 

Your name is Nathan ? 

Nathan. 
Yes. 

Saladin. 
The wise Nathan ? 

Nathan. 
No. 

Saladin. 

True, not the name 
You give yourself, but that the people give you. 

Nathan. 
May be. The people ! 

Saladin. 

Think you I despise 
The people's voice ? Long have I wished to know 
The man they call the wise. 



IOS NATHAN THE WISE. 

Nathan. 

If but in scorn 
They call him so ; if to the people's thought 
The wise is but the prudent, and the prudent 
But he who understands his own advantage ? 

Saladin. 
His true advantage mean you ? 

Nathan. 

Then indeed 
The selfish were the wise ; then wise, and prudent 
Would be indeed the same. 

Saladin. 

I hear you prove 
What you would fain deny. Man's true advantage, 
Mistaken by the people, is known to you ; 
Or has been sought by you ; has been the theme 
Of your reflections ; that alone makes wise. 

Nathan. 
Which eveiy man esteems himself to be. 

Saladin. 
Enough of modesty ; it nauseates 
To hear but that, when we expect dry reason. 

[S/ar/s up. 
Let us to business. But be honest, Jew, — 
Be honest ! 



NATHAN THE WISE. IO9 

Nathan. 
Sultan, I will surety serve you, 
In manner to deserve your further custom. 

Saladin. 
How serve me ? 

Nathan. 
You shall have the best of goods, 
And at the lowest price. 

Saladin. 

What speak you of — 
Your merchandise ? My sister presently 
Will do the chaffering with you. (That for her, 
The listener !) I've no business with the merchant 

Nathan. 
Then must you wish to learn what on my way 
I may have seen, encountered of the foe, 
Who is astir again ; if openly — 

Saladin. 
Nor yet is that my present business with you. 
Of that I know already all I need.- — 
In short — 

Nathan. 
Command me, Sultan. 

Saladin. 

I desire 
Instruction of you in another matter — 
10 



TTO NATHAN THE WISE. 

In quite another. — Since so great your wisdom, 
I pray you tell me what belief, what law 
Has most commended itself to you. 

Nathan. 

Sultan, 
I am a Jew. 

Saladin. 
And I a Mussulman. 
Between us is the Christian. Now, but one 
Of all these three religions can be true. 
A man like you stands not where accident 
Of birth has cast him. If he so remain, 
It is from judgment, reasons, choice of best. 
Impart to me your judgment ; let me hear 
The reasons I've no time to seek myself. 
Communicate, in confidence of course, 
The choice you have arrived at through those reasons, 
That I may make it mine. — You are surprised — 
You weigh me with your glance! — May be that 

Sultan 
Had ne'er such whim before ; which yet I deem 
Not unbecoming in a Sultan. Speak — 
Your answer ! Or a moment would you have 
To think upon it ? Good ; I grant it you. 
(Can she be listening ? I'll surprise her then, 
And learn if I've done well.) But quick, be quick 
With your reflections. I'll not tarry long. 

[Goes into the adjoining room, as Siitah had done. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 



11 J 



Scene VI. 

Nathan {alone). 

Hm ! — singular indeed ! What means it all ? 
What will the Sultan have ? I am prepared 
For money, and he asks for truth — for truth ! 
And wants it hard and bare, as truth were coin. 
Yes ; if an ancient coin which went by weight, 
I grant you ; but this coinage of to-day 
That's counted down, and has no other value 
Except the stamp upon it ; — that she's not. 
Can truth be swept into the head like gold 
Into a sack ? Which here is most the Jew — 
Is't I or he ? — But stay ; what if the Sultan 
Were not in earnest in his search for truth ? 
Nay ; the suspicion he could use the truth 
But for a snare, would be too mean. Too mean ? 
Is aught too mean for princes ? — Surely, surely. 
With what abruptness made he his attack ! 
One knocks and listens, if one comes as friend. — 
I'll be upon my guard with him. But how ? 
To play the bigot Jew avails not here : 
Still less no Jew at all. For if no Jew, 
Well might he ask, why not a Mussulman ? — 
I have it, — that will save me ; for with fables 
Not children only can be entertained. 
He comes : well, let him come ! 



I J 2 NATHAN THE WISE. 



Scene VII. 
Saladin and Nathan. 

Saladin. 

(The coast is clear. ) 
I'm not returned too soon for you, I hope ; 
You've brought your meditations to a close ? 
Speak then ; no soul can hear us. 

Nathan. 

I am willing 
The world should hear us. 

Saladin. 

Nathan is so sure 
Of his good cause ? Ah, that I call a sage ; 
Never to hide the truth ; to stake on it 
Your all ; your soul and body, goods and life. 

Nathan. 
When necessary it shall be, and useful. 

Saladin. 
With right I hope henceforth to bear my title, 
Reformer of the world and of the law. 

Nathan. 
A noble title certainly. Yet, Sultan, 
Ere I bestow my perfect confidence, 
Permit me to relate a story to you. 



nathan the wise. ii3 

Saladin. 
Why not ? I ever have been fond of stories 
Well told. 

Nathan. 
The telling well I do not promise. 

Saladin. 
Again so proudly modest I- — Come, your story ! 

Nathan. 
In gray antiquity there lived a man 
In Eastern lands, who had received a ring — 
Of priceless worth from a beloved hand. 
Its stone, an opal, flashed a hundred colors, 
And had the secret power of giving favor, 
In sight of God and man, to him who wore it 
With a believing heart. What wonder then 
This Eastern man would never put the ring 
From off his finger, and should so provide 
That to his house it be preserved forever ? 
Such was the case. Unto the best-beloved 
Among his sons he left the ring, enjoining 
That he in turn bequeath it to the son 
Who should be dearest ; and the dearest ever, 
In virtue of the ring, without regard 
To birth, be of the house the prince and head. 
You understand me, Sultan ? 

Saladin. 

Yes ; go on ! 

10* 



114 nathan the wise- 

Nathan. 
From son to son the ring descending, came 
To one, the sire of three ; of whom all three 
Were equally obedient ; whom all three 
He therefore must with equal love regard. 
And yet from time to time now this, now that, 
And now the third, — as each alone was by, 
The others not dividing his fond heart, — 
Appeared to him the worthiest of the ring ; 
Which then, with loving weakness, he would promise 
To each in turn. Thus it continued long. 
But he must die ; and then the loving father 
Was sore perplexed. It grieved him thus to wound 
Two faithful sons who trusted in his word ; 
But what to do ? In secrecy he calls 
An artist to him, and commands of him 
Two other rings, the pattern of his own ; 
And bids him neither cost nor pains to spare 
To make them like, precisely like to that. 
The artist's skill succeeds. He brings the rings, 
And e'en the father cannot tell his own. 
Relieved and joyful, summons he his sons, 
Each by himself ; to each one by himself 
He gives his blessing, and his ring — and dies. — 
You listen, Sultan ? 

Saladin {who, somewhat perplexed, has /urned away). 

Yes ; I hear, I hear. 
But bring your story to an end. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 115 

Nathan. 

'Tis ended ; 

For what remains would tell itself. The father 
Was scarcely dead, when each brings forth his ring, 
And claims the headship. Questioning ensues, 
Strife, and appeal to law ; but all in vain. 
The genuine ring was not to be distinguished ; — 

[After a pause, in which he awaits the Sultan s answer \ 
As undistinguishable as with us 
The true religion. 

Saladin. 
That your answer to me ? 

Nathan. 
But my apology for not presuming 
Between the rings to judge, which with design 
The father ordered undistinguishable. 

Saladin. 
The rings ? — You trifle with me. The religions 
I named to you are plain to be distinguished — 
E'en in the dress, e'en in the food and drink. 

Nathan. 
In all except the grounds on which they rest. 
Are they not founded all on history, 
Traditional or written ? History 
Can be accepted only upon trust. 
Whom now are we the least inclined to doubt ? 
Not our own people — our own blood ; not those 



Il6 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Who from our childhood up have proved their lo\e; 
Ne'er disappointed, save when disappointment 
Was wholesome to us ? Shall my ancestors 
Receive less faith from me, than yours from you ? 
Reverse it : Can I ask you to belie 
Your fathers, and transfer your faith to mine ? 
Or yet, again, holds not the same with Christians ? 

Saladin. 
(By heaven, the man is right ! I've naught to answer.) 

Nathan. 
Return we to our rings. As I have said, 
The sons appealed to law, and each took oath 
Before the judge that from his father's hand 
He had the ring, — as was indeed the truth ; 
And had received his promise long before, 
One day the ring, with all its privileges, 
Should be his own, — as was not less the truth. 
The father could not have been false to him, 
Each one maintained ; and rather than allow 
Upon the memory of so dear a father 
Such stain to rest, he must against his brothers, 
Though gladly he would nothing but the best 
Believe of them, bring charge of treachery ; 
Means would he find the traitors to expose, 
And be revenged on them. 

Saladin. 

And now the judge ? 
I long to hear what words you give the judge. 
Go on ! 



NATHAN THE WISE. 117 

Nathan. 
Thus spoke the judge : Produce your father 
At once before me, else from my tribunal 
Do I dismiss you. Think you I am here 
To guess your riddles ? Either would you wait 
Until the genuine ring shall speak ? — But hold ! 
A magic power in the true ring resides, 

LAs I am told, to make its wearer loved — 
Pleasing to God and man. Let that decide. 
For in the false can no such virtue lie. 
Which one among you, then, do two love best ? 
Speak ! Are you silent ? Work the rings but 

backward, 
Not outward ? Loves each one himself the best ? 
Then cheated cheats are all of you ! The rings 
All three are false. The genuine ring was lost ; 
And to conceal, supply the loss, the father 
Made three in place of one. 

Saladin. 

Oh, excellent ! 

Nathan. 
Go, therefore, said the judge, unless my counsel 
You'd have in place of sentence. It were this : 
Accept the case exactly as it stands. 
Had each his ring directly from his father, 
Let each believe his own is genuine. 
'Tis possible your father would no longer 
His house to one ring's tyranny subject ; 



Il8 NATHAN THE WISE. 

And certain that all three of you he loved, 
Loved equally, since two he would not humble, 
That one might be exalted. Let each one 
To his unbought, impartial love aspire ; 
Each with the others vie to bring to light 
The virtue of the stone within his ring ; 
Let gentleness, a hearty love of peace, 
Beneficence, and perfect trust in God, 
Come to its help. Then if the jewel's power 
Among your children's children be revealed, 
I bid you in a thousand, thousand years 
Again before this bar. A wiser man 
Than I shall occupy this seat, and speak. 
Go ! — Thus the modest judge dismissed them. 

Saladin. 

God! 

Nathan. 
If therefore, Saladin, you feel yourself 
That promised, wiser man — 

Saladin (rushing to him, and seizing his hand, which 
he holds to the end), 

I? Dust!— I? Naught! 
OGod! 

Nathan. 
What moves you, Sultan ? 

Saladin. 

Nathan, Nathan ! 
Not ended are the thousand, thousand years 



NATHAN THE WISE. IIQ 

Your judge foretold ; not mine to claim his seat. 
Go, go ! — But be my friend. 

Nathan. 

No further orders 
Has Saladin for me ? 

Saladin. 

None. 

Nathan. 
None ? 



Why ask ? 



Saladin. 

No, none. 



Nathan. 
An opportunity I sought 
To proffer a request. 

Saladin. 
Needs a request 
An opportunity ? Speak ! 

Nathan. 

I'm returned 
From distant journeyings to collect my debts. 
Of ready money I've too much on hand. 
Times grow again uncertain. Scarce I know 
Where safely to dispose it ; and I thought 
That you, perhaps, since more is always needed 
For an approaching war, might mine employ. 



120 NATHAN TIIE WISE. 

Saladin {fixing his eyes upon him. ) 
I will not ask you, Nathan, if Al-Hafi 
Has been already with you ; — will not ask 
If no suspicion prompts this willing offer— 

Nathan. 
Suspicion ? 

Saladin. 

I deserve it ; — but forgive me ! 

Why seek to hide it ? Frankly, 'twas my purpose — ■ 

Nathan. 
Not to ask me the same ? 

Saladin. 

It was indeed. 

Nathan. 
Then can we both be served. This Templar only 
Prevents my sending you my whole supply. 
You know the Templar. I've a heavy debt 
That first must be discharged to him. 

Saladin. 

A Templar ? 
You surely do not with your gold support 
My bitterest foes ? 

Nathan. 
I speak but of the one 
Whose life you spared. 



nathan the wise. 121 

Saladin. 

What bring you to my mind ! 
The youth I'd utterly forgot. You know him ? 
Where is he ? 

Nathan. 
Know vou not how much your grace 
Has flowed through him on me ? His new-found 

life 
He risked to save my daughter from the fire. 

Salad ix. 
Ah, did he so ? He looked like such an one. 
So had my brother done, whom he resembles. 
Is he still here ? Conduct him hither to me. 
So often have I spoken to my sister 
Of this her brother whom she never knew, 
She must behold his image. — Go, go find him ! 
From one good deed, though born of naught but 

passion, 
How t many other noble deeds will spring ! 
Go, find him ! 

Nat h ax. 

Instantly ! — It stands agreed 
About the other. [Goes. 

Saladin. 

Ah, why let I not 
My sister listen ? To her, to her now ! 
How shall I ever tell her of it all ? 

[Goes out in the opposite direction. 
ii 



12.2 A ATI! AX THE WISE. 



Scene VIII. 

Grove of palms near the Convent, where the Templar 
awaits Nathan] 

Templar {walking to and fro in conflict with himself 

till he thus breaks for in). 
Here must the weary victim cease his struggles. — 
So be it then ! I will not, must not look 
Into my heart more closely, nor forecast 
The future for it. Enough that flight was useless, 
Useless. And yet I could do nothing more 
Than fly. — Now come what must ! — Too suddenly 
To be evaded fell at last the blow 
That oft and long I had refused to meet. — 
To see her, her I had so little wish 
To see ; to see her, and resolve my eyes 
Should never let her go — Resolve ? Resolve 
Is purpose, action. I was simply passive. 
To see her, and to feel my very being 
Was linked with hers, bound up in hers forever, 
Was instantaneous. Life apart from her 
Is inconceivable to me — were death ; 
And wheresoe'er we may be after death, 
There too were death. If that be love, then — then — - 
The Templar loves — the Christian loves the Jewess. 
What matter? Many a prejudice already 



NATHAN THE WISE. 12$ 

Have I discarded in the Holy Land — 

Holy to me forever for that cause. 

What will my Order further ? I, the Templar, 

Am dead. The moment I became the prisoner 

Of Saladin, I died unto my Order. 

This head the Sultan gave, — is it my old one? 

Nay, 'tis a new one — one that has no knowledge 

Of the traditions by which that was fettered. 

A better too ; and better calculated 

To breathe my native air. That can I feel ; 

For it is giving me the very thoughts 

My father must have cherished here before me, 

Unless I've been imposed upon with fables. 

Yet wherefore fables ? Credible enough ; 

And never to my mind more credible 

Than now, in danger as I am of stumbling 

Where he has fallen. — Fallen ? I will choose 

Rather to fall with men than stand with children 

His approbation is secured to me 

By his example ; and whose approbation 

Could I desire besides ? If Nathan's — Ah, 

Still less can his encouragement be wanting — 

Rather than approbation.— What a Jew ! 

Yet one who chooses to be thought a Jew, 

And nothing better. — Here he comes in haste, 

And glowing with delight, like all who come 

From Saladin. Ho, Nathan ! 



124 NATHAN THE WISE 



Scene IX. 
Nathan and the Templar. 

Nathan. 

Is it you ? 

Templar. 

You tarried long with Saladin. 

Nathan. 

Less long 
Than you imagine. I was much delayed 
In my departure. Truly, truly, Curd, 
The man is equal to his fame ; his fame 
Is but his shadow. I must tell you first 
And quickly — 

Templar. 
What? 

Nathan. 

He will have speech with you ; 
Without delay he bids you to his presence. 
First to my house with me, where his affairs 
Demand my presence ; then we'll go together. 

Templar. 
Your house I ne'er again will enter, Nathan, 
Till— 



NATHAN THE WISE. I 25 

Nathan. 
Have you been already — spoken with her ? 
Say, how does Recha please you ? 

Templar. 

Past expression! 
But never — never will I see her more ! 
Else must you promise it may be forever. 

Nathan. 
How must I understand your words ? 

Templar {after a pause, suddenly throwing himself on 
Nathan s neck). 

My father ! 

Nathan. 
Young man ! 

Templar {starling back from him as suddenly). 
Not son ? — I pray you, Nathan ! — 

Nathan. 

Friend ! 

Templar. 
Not son ? — I pray you, Nathan ! — I conjure you— 
By Nature's earliest ties ! Let later bonds 
Not take precedence of them ! Be content 
To be a man ! Reject me not ! 

Nathan. 

Dear friend ! 
11* 



126 NATHAN THE WISE, 

Templar. 
And son ? — not son ? — Not e'en if gratitude 
Have in your daughter's heart prepared the way 
For love — if both were waiting but your sign 
To melt into each other ! — You are silent ? 

Nathan. 
You take me by surprise, young knight. 

Templar. 

Surprise ? 
Surprise you with your own suggestions, Nathan? 
Sound they then unfamiliar from my lips ? 
How take you by surprise ? 

Nathan. 

Ere I e'en know 
What Stauffen was your father? 

Templar. 

Nathan, Nathan ! 
At such a moment have you no emotion 
Save curiosity ? 

Nathan. 
For in the past 
A Stauffen well I knew : his name was Conrad. 

Templar. 
If 'twere my father's name ? 

Nathan. 

Was it indeed ? 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 27 

Templar. 
I bear my fathers name, Curd. Curd is Conrad. 

Nathan. 
My Conrad, though, could not have been your father ; 
For he was like yourself — he was a Templar ; 
Ne'er married. 

Templar 
For that reason — 

Nathan. 

What? 

Templar. 

For that 
He might have been my father. 

Nathan. 

You are jesting. 

Templar. 
And you are much too serious. Where's the harm ? 
A bit of bastard ; a bar sinister ; 
A breed it is, no wise to be despised. — 
But leave my ancestors unquestioned, Nathan ; 
So shall your own go free. No faintest doubt 
I mean to cast upon your pedigree. 
No ; God forbid ! You trace it, branch by branch. 
As high as Abraham ; and from him still up 
I know it well myself — could swear to it. , 

Nathan. 
You're bitter ; but have I deserved it from you ? 



128 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Have I yet aught refused ? I would not hold you 
Upon the instant to your word. No more. 

Templar. 
No more ? Ah, then forgive ! 

Nathan. 

Come, come with me. 

Templar. 
And whither ? — -to your house ? No, no ; not there—* 
Not there ! — it burns me ! I will wait you here. 
Go. — If I am to look on her again, 
'Twill be to gaze my fill ; if not — too much 
Already have I seen her. 

Nathan. 
I will haste. 



Scene X. 
The Templar ; soon afterwards Daja. 

Templar. 
More than enough ! — how infinitely much 
Man's brain will hold, and yet at times grows full 
So suddenly, — so suddenly grows full 
With naught !— Vain, vain — be it filled with what it 
may !— • 



NATHAN THE WISE. 



I2Q 



But patience ! Soon upon this swollen mass 
The soul will work, and space be cleared, and light 
And Qrder reign again. — Have I ne'er loved 
Before ? Was that not love, that love I deemed ? 
Can only this be love ? 

Daja (approaching stealthily}. 
Knight, Knight ! 

Templar. 

Who calls ? 
You, Daja? 

Daja. 
Unperceived by him, I passed ; 
Yet where you stand might he detect us. Come, 
Come nearer me. This tree shall be our screen. 

Templar 
What is it ? why so secret ? 

Daja. 

'Tis a secret 
That brings me to you ; ay, a double secret ; 
One known but to myself — one but to you. 
What say you to exchanging ? Give me yours, 
And mine will I confide to you. 

Templar. 

Right gladly, 
When first I know what you consider mine. 
That doubtless shall I learn from yours. Begin I 



i30 nathan the wise. 

Daja. 
Excuse me. No, Sir Knight, you first ; I follow. 
Be sure my secret will avail you naught, 
Have I not first your own. Quick, therefore, quick ! 
Wait till I draw it from you, you will then 
Have naught confided ; mine is still my own, 
While yours is gone. — Poor Knight ! that men should 

think 
Such secrets can be hidden from a woman ! 

Templar. 
Which oft we're quite unconscious of possessing. 

Daja. 
Tis possible. Then will I kindly first 
Acquaint you with your own. What meant it, Knight, 
That with such headlong haste but now you fled ; 
That you so left us wondering ; that with Nathan 
You joined us not again ? Made Recha, then, 
So slight impression, or so great ? So great ! 
So great ! The flutterings of the poor charmed bird 
Chained to his perch, am I to learn from you ? 
Come, own you love her, love her e'en to madness, 
And I will tell you — 

Templar. 

Madness? Truly, there 
You speak of what you know. 

Daja. 

Own then the love ; 
I yield the madness. 



js'athax the wise. i3i 

Templar. 
For it tells itself? 
A Templar love a Jewess ! 

Data. 

Little enough 
Of reason seems there in it ; yet have things 
Ofttimes a deeper reason than we think. 
No new thing were it that unto himself 
The Saviour should conduct us upon ways 
The wise would scarce have chosen. 

Templar. 

You are solemn, 
(Yet if for Saviour read I Providence, 
Is she not right ?) My curiosity 
Is stirred beyond its wont. 

Data. 

This is the land 
Of wonders. 

Templar. 
(Of the wonderful indeed. 
Could it be otherwise — since here the world 
Is met together ?) Take for granted, Daja, 
Whatever you desire ; say that I love her ; 
I cannot think of life without her ; that — 

Daja. 
In truth ? Then swear to make her yours, to save her, 

For time and for eternity to save her. 



13 2 nathan the wise. 

Templar. 
How so — how can I so ? Can I then swear 
What lies not in my power ? 

Daja. 

'Tis in your power. 
One word of mine shall put it in your power. 

Templar. 
That e'en her father shall have naught against it ? 

Daja. 

Oh, never mind the father 1 He must yield. 

Templar. 
Must, Daja ? Has he fallen among thieves ? 
There is no must. 

Daja. 
Well,, well ; he must be willing—* 
He must be glad at last. 

Templar. 

He must — and glad ? 
If I should tell you, Daja, 'tis a chord 
I've struck already ! 

Daja. 
And he chimed not in ? 

Templar. 
He answered with a discord that offended. 



nathan the wise. 1 33 

Daja. 
What say you ? At the shadow of a wish 
You showed for Recha, leaped he not for joy, 
But drew with coldness back, raised difficulties ? 

Templar. 
'Twas nearly so. 

Daja. 

Then not one moment more 
I hesitate. 

Templar. 
Yet still you hesitate ? 

Daja. 
So good he is in all besides ! my debt 
To him so great ! Oh that he would but hear ! 
God knows my heart is bleeding thus to force him. 

Templar. 
I pray you keep me not in this suspense ! 
Yet if yourself uncertain whether good 
Or evil, culpable or laudable 

Your purpose, speak not. I'll forget there's aught 
To be concealed. 

Daja. 
That checks me not, but spurs me. 
Know then that Recha is no Jewish maiden ; 
She is — a Christian. 

Templar {coldly). 
I congratulate you. 

12 



134 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Found you the labor hard ? Let not the throes 

Dismay you ! Still continue zealously 

To people heaven, when you can naught for earth. 

Data. 

How, Knight ! Deserves my confidence your scorn \ 
Care you — you, Christian, Templar, Lover too — 
Care you so little Recha is a Christian ? 

Templar. 
Especially a Christian of your making ! 

Data. 
You take me so ? No wonder then ! Not so ; 
I'd like to see who could convert her ! No ! 
It is her happiness to have been long 
What she is spoiled forever for becoming. 

Templar. 
Tell all, or— go ! 

Data. 
She is a Christian child ; 
Of Christian parents born ; baptized — 

Templar {hastily). 

And Nathan ? 

Data. 
Is not her father ! 

Templar. 
Nathan not her father ! 
Know you what you are saying ? 



nathan the wise, 135 

Daja. 

The truth which oft 
Has cost me tears of blood.- — He's not her father ! 

Templar. 
But as his daughter brought her up ? A Christian 
Brought up as Jewess ? 

Daja. 

Yes. 

Templar. 

And knows she not 
What she was born ? ne'er has she learned from him 
That she was born a Christian, not a Jewess ? 

Daja. 
Never. 

Templar. 
Not only did he train the child 
In this delusion, but in this delusion 
Allow the maid to rest ? 

Daja. 

Alas, too true ! 
Templar. 
Could Nathan, wise and good, allow himself 
The voice of Nature thus to falsify ; 
Thus misdirect the emotions of a heart 
Which of themselves had flowed in other channels ? 
A something you indeed have told me, Daja, 



I36 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Which is of weight ; is big with consequences ; 
Bewilders me ; throws doubt upon my course. — 
I must have time. Go ! He will come this way, 
And might surprise us. Go 1 

Data. 

Ah, that were death ! 

Templar. 
I am unfit to meet him. If you see him, 
Say that before the Sultan he shall find me. 

Data. 
No hint to him ! Reserve that till the last, 
To take from you all scruples touching Recha. 
But when you take her back to Europe, Knight, 
Pray, leave me not behind. 

Templar. 

Well see. Go, go ! 



NATHAN THE WISE. 137 



ACT FOURTH. 



Scene I. 

The cloisters of the Monastery. The Lay-brother ; 
afterwards the Templar. 

Lay-brother. 
Ay, ay ; the Patriarch's in the right ; 'tis true, 
Of all the matters he intrusted to me, 
Not many would succeed. But why intrust 
Such matters to me ? I've no knack at plotting, 
Persuading, thrusting everywhere my nose, 
In every dish my ringers. But for this 
Did I forsake the world, to be involved 
More deeply in it by affairs of others ? 

Templar {approaching him hurriedly). 
You're here, good brother ! I have sought you long. 

Lay-brother. 
Me, Knight? 

Templar. 
Have you so soon forgotten me ? 

Lay-brother. 
Not so ; I only thought that ne'er in life 
Would further sight of you be granted me ; 
12* 



j^S NATHAN THE WISE. 

And hoped to Heaven it never might. God knows 
How much I loathed my errand to the Knight : 
He knows if ready ear I hoped to find ; 
Knows how I was rejoiced, at heart rejoiced, 
That you would give it scarce a thought, but flatly 
Rejected what would ill become a knight. — 
But now you seek me. It has taken effect. 

Templar. 
You know why I am come ? I scarce could tell. 

Lay-brother. 
You have considered it ; find, after all, 
The Patriarch not so wrong ; that fame and fortune 
Lie in his offer ; that a foe's a foe, 
Though he had been seven times our angel. That, 
All that, with flesh and blood you've balanced well, 
And come and offer for the work. Alas ! 

Templar. 
Good man, take comfort : not for that I come ; 
Not therefore do I seek the Patriarch. 
His offer do I still esteem as then. 
For all the world could give, I would not lose 
The approval once vouchsafed me by a man 
So honest, kind, and true. I only come 
To ask the Patriarch's counsel in a matter — 

Lay-brother. 
The Patriarch's ? Seeks a knight a priest's — 

\Casting a frightened look around. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 39 

Templar. 

Yes, brother ; 
The case is somewhat priestly. 

Lay-brother. 

Ne'er would priest 
Consult a knight, the case be e'er so knightly. 

Templar. 
For 'tis the priest's prerogative to err ; 
One we'll not greatly envy him. Indeed, 
Concerned this matter but myself alone, 
Were I but to myself accountable, 
What need of Patriarch ? But some things there are 
I'd rather do amiss by others' judgment, 
Than wisely by my own. Besides, I've learned 
Religion also is a party thing ; 
The most impartial, as he deems himself, 
Defends unconsciously his favorite side. — > 
Since so it is, we must suppose it right. 

Lay-brother. 
I would be silent — understanding not 
The Knight. 

Templar. 
And yet — (what is it here I want — 
Decree or counsel ? — counsel plain or learned ?) 
Thanks, brother, for the hint. Why Patriarch ? 
Be you my Patriarch ; for it is the Christian 
Within the Patriarch that I would consult, 
And not the Patriarch in the Christian. Listen ! 



140 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Lay-brother. 
No further, Knight — no further ! To what purpose? 
The Knight mistakes me. He who has much know- 
ledge 
Has many cares, and I am pledged to one. 
But see — he comes himself, most happily. 
Wait where you are ; already he has seen you. 



Scene II. 

The Patriarch advancing in great pomp on one side of 
the cloisters, and the preceding. 

Templar. 
I would I could escape. He's not my man ! 
A red, fat, jolly prelate ; and what state ! 

Lay-brother. 
See him arrayed for court ! Now he but comes 
From visiting the sick. 

Templar. 
How Saladin 
Must blush before him ! 

Patriarch {signs to the Brother). 

Here ! — I see the Templar. 
What will he have ? 



NATHAX THE WISE. J 4 1 

Lay-brother. 
I know not. 

Patriarch {approaching the Templar, while the brother 
and attendants fall back). 

Ah, Sir Knight- 
Most glad so gallant a young man to greet ; 
Ay, still so young ! Great things will come of you, 
God helping. 

Templar. 
Scarcely greater, reverend Sir, 
Than what have come ; more likely somewhat less. 

Patriarch. 
I hope at least a knight so pious may bloom 
And nourish long, an honor and a gain 
To Christendom and to the cause of God ; 
Which cannot fail if, wisely, youthful daring 
Will use the ripe experience of age. 
How can I serve the Knight ? 

Templar. 

By giving that 
In which my youth is wanting — counsel. 

Patriarch. 

Gladly, 
Provided, only, counsel will be taken. 

Templar. 
Not blindly, certainly? 



142 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Patriarch. 

I say not blindly. 
No man indeed should fail to use the reason 
That God has given him — in its proper place. 
But is that everywhere ? Oh no ! For instance : 
Should God vouchsafe to show us by an angel — 
That is, a servant of His holy word — 
A means of furthering, establishing 
The welfare of all Christendom, the good 
Of Holy Church in an especial manner, 
Who would presume to let his reason question 
The absolute authority of Him 
Who made that reason — try the eternal law 
Of Heaven's high majesty by narrow rules 
Of idle honor ? But enough of this. 
Now on what question seeks the Knight our counsel ? 

Templar. 
Suppose, most reverend Father, that a Jew 
Should have an only child, an only daughter — 
Trained up in every virtue by his care, 
Loved more than his own soul, who, in return, 
Loves him with fond devotion — and 'twere told 
To one of us the girl was not his daughter ; 
That he had bought, found, stolen her, what you will, 
In childhood ; and that further it was know T n 
She was a Christian, and had been baptized, — 
The Jew had only brought her up a Jewess, 
Would only have her taken for a Jewess, 



NATHAN THE WISE. 143 

And his own daughter. Say, most reverend Father ; 
How shall such case be dealt with ? 

Patriarch. 

Ah, I shudder ! 

First let the Knight explain if this be fact 

Or but hypothesis ; that is to say, 

If he invented it, or if 'twere done, 

Be doing now, 

Templar. 

That deem I unimportant ; 
I would but learn your Reverence's opinion. 

Patriarch. 
Deem unimportant ! There the Knight may see 
How pride of human reason will mislead 
In matters spiritual. Not unimportant ; 
For is the case proposed a play of wit, 
It merits not my serious reflection. 
I should refer the Knight to any theatre 
Where with applause the pros and cons are argued. 
But if the Knight put no stage trick upon me ; 
If this be fact ; if in our diocese, 
In our dear city of Jerusalem, 
It shall have come to pass ; then — 

Templar. 

And what then ? 

Patriarch. 
Then should be executed on the Jew, 
Without delay, the penalty decreed 



144 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Against such crimes, such outrages, by laws 
Imperial and papal. 

Templar. 
So? 

Patriarch. 
Those laws 
Decree to any Jew who from the faith 
A Christian shall pervert, the stake — the flames — 

Templar. 
So? 

Patriarch. 

How much more to one who shall have torn 
By violence from her baptismal vows 
A Christian child ! For all is violence 
That's done to children, is it not ? — that is, 
Excepting what the Church may do to children. 

Templar. 
But if the child in misery had died, 
Unless the Jew had had compassion on it ? 

Patriarch. 
It matters not ; the Jew goes to the stake ! 
Better the child had died in misery here 
Than thus be saved for everlasting ruin.- — 
Besides, why need the Jew anticipate 
God's providence ? Without him God can save, 
If save he will. 



NATE AX THE WISE. 145 

Templar. 
And e'en in spite of him, 
I trow, accord salvation. 

Patriarch. 
Matters not ; 
The Jew goes to the stake ! 

Templar. 

I grieve to hear it. 
The more because the girl is trained, 'tis said, 
In no religion rather than his own ; 
And has been taught no more nor less of God 
Than satisfies her reason. 

Patriarch. 

Matters not ; 
The Jew goes to the stake ! — a triple stake, 
For that alone he'd merit. Let a child 
Grow up with no religion — teach it naught 
Of the important duty of believing ! 
That is too much ! I marvel, Knight, that you — 

Templar. 

The rest in the confessional, God willing, 

Most reverend Sir. [About to go* 

Patriarch. 
You give no explanation ? 
You name me not this criminal, this Jew ? 
Produce him not ? But I have means at hand. 
13 



I46 NATHAN THE WISE. 

I'll instantly to Salaclin. The Sultan, 

According to the treaty he has sworn, 

Must, must protect us ; in the rights, the doctrines 

That for the true religion we may claim, 

He must protect us. The original, 

Thank God, is ours. We have his hand and seal. 

'Twere easy to convince him, too, the State, 

By this believing nothing, is endangered ; 

All hold upon the citizen dissolved, 

When he's permitted to believe in nothing. 

Away with such a scandal ! 

Templar. 

I regret 
Not having greater leisure to enjoy 
So excellent a sermon. Saladin 
Has summoned me. 

Patriarch. 

The Sultan ? — Then — indeed— 

Templar. 

I will, if it shall please your Reverence, 
Prepare the Sultan. 

Patriarch. 
Ah ! — The Knight, I know, 
Found favor with the Sultan. I but pray 
To be remembered favorably to him. 
My only motive is my zeal for God. 
If I in aught exceed, 'tis for his sake. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 47 

I pray the Knight will so consider it. 

That tale about the Jew was but a problem — 

Not so, Sir Knight ? That is to say — 

Templar. 

A problem. [Goes, 

Patriarch. 
(Yet one that must be sifted to the bottom. 
Another excellent commission that 
For brother Bonafides. ) — Here, my son ! 

[Speaks on his way out with the Lay-brother, 



Scene III. 

A room in the Sultan s palace. A number of slaves 
bring in bags and lay them side by side upon the floor. 
Saladin ; soon afterwards Sit t ah. 

Saladin (entering). 
What ! 'Tis not ended yet ! Is much remaining ? 

Slave. 
As much again. 

Saladin. 
Then take the rest to Sittah. — 
Where tarries Hafi ? Han should be here 
To take immediate charge of this. Or were it 
Not better carried to my father ? Here 



148 NATHAN THE WISE. 

It will but slip away from me. 'Tis true, 

One's heart grows hard at last ; and surely now 

'Twould take some skill to squeeze much out of me. 

At least, until the moneys come from Egypt, 

The poor must make what shift they can. — The alms 

About the sepulchre, if only they 

Might be continued ; if the Christian pilgrims 

Need only not go empty-handed ; if — 

Sittah. 
What means all this ? Why all this gold for me ? 

Saladin. 
Repay yourself from it, and lay up store, 
If any's over. 

Sittah. 

Nathan not yet come 
With the young Templar ? 

Saladin. 

He is everywhere 
In search of him. 

Sittah. 
See what I found but now, 
While searching 'mongst my jewels. 

[ Showing him a miniature. 

Saladin. 

Ha ! My brother I 
'Tis he — 'tis he ! Was he — was he ! Alas ! 



NATHAN THE WISE. I49 

My noble boy ! oh, why so early lost ! 

What might I not have done, with you beside me? 

Leave me the picture, Sittah. Well I know it. 

He gave it to your sister, to his Lilla, 

One morning when she hung about his neck, 

And would not let him go. It was the last 

He rode abroad. I let him go — alone. 

Poor Lilla died of grief, and ne'er forgave me 

That I should let him thus ride forth alone. — 

He came not back. 

Sittah. 
Poor brother ! 

Salad ix. 

Be it so ! 
One day we all shall go and come not back. — 
Besides — who knows — Not death alone defeats 
The hopes of such as he. More foes he has ; 
And oft the strongest yields him like the weakest. 
But be it as it may ! — The Templar's face 
I must compare with this ; — must read in this 
How far my fancy has misled me. 

Sittah. 

Yes ; 
For that I brought it here. But give it me ! 
I'll tell you best ; a woman's eye sees quicker. 

Saladin {to a?i attendant who enters). 
Who's there ? If 'tis the Templar, bid him enter, 

13* 



I5O NATHAN THE WISE. 

SlTTAH. 

That you be not disturbed, nor he confused 
By my examination — 

[Seats herself upon a sofa, her face partly averted* 
and drops her veil. 

Saladin. 

That is well ! 
(Now for his voice — how will it be with that ? 
The tones of Assad slumber still within me.) 



Scene IV. 
The Templar and Saladin. 

Templar. 
Your prisoner, Sultan — ■ 

Saladin. 

Prisoner ? Grant I life, 
And grant not freedom too ? 

Templar. 

What you may grant 
'Tis mine to learn, and not anticipate. 
But, Sultan, thanks to offer for my life 
Accords not with my character or Order. 
At any call that life is at your service. 



nathan the wise. i5i 

Saladin. 
1 ask you but to use it not against me. 
My foe I grudge not one more pair of hands ; 
But 'twould go hard one more such heart to give him. 
I've been in naught deceived in you, young man — 
You're Assad o'er again in form and soul. 
Yea, I might ask you where through all these years 
You've been in hiding ; sleeping in what cave ; 
What kindly power, within what Ginnistan, 
Has kept my flower from year to year so fresh. 
I might attempt to call up memories 
Of what we did together here or there ; 
Might chide you that you kept one secret from me ; 
Excluded me from one adventure. Yes, 
That might I if I look not at myself, 
But only you. — Enough. Of these sweet dreams 
So much at least is true, that in my autumn 
An Assad is to bloom for me again. 
Consent you, Knight ? 

Templar. 
Whatever comes from you 
Already lay, a wish, within my heart. 

Saladin. 
That test we on the instant. Stay with me, 
About me. As a Mussulman or Christian, 
Alike to me ! In turban or in hat, 
White cloak or Turkish mantle — as you will ! 
I ne'er required one bark on every tree. 



T52 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Templar. 
Else were you not, as now you are, the hero, 
Who fain would be God's husbandman. 

Saladin. 

So then, 
If thus you judge me, we are half agreed. 

Templar. 
Quite ! 

Saladin {offering his hand). 
Done ? 

Templar {grasping it). 
A bargain ! More receive with this 
Than you could force from me. I'm wholly yours ! 

Saladin. 
Too much to gain in one short day — too much I 
Came he not with you here ? 

Templar. 

Who? 

Saladin. 

Nathan. 

Templar {coldly). 

No; 
I came alone. 

Saladin. 

Yours was a noble deed ; 



NATHAX TILE WISE. 1 53 

And what a happy chance that such a deed 
Should work the good of such a man ! 

Templar. 

Oh yes. 

Saladix. 
So coldly ? Nay, young man, be not so cold 
When you are made God's instrument for good ; 
Nor wish through modesty so cold to seem.. 

Templar. 
Why are all things on earth so many-sided, 
And all their sides so hard to reconcile ! 

Saladix. 
Hold always to the best, and give God thanks. 
'Tis His to reconcile them. But, young man, 
If you will be so difficult, I too 
Must be upon my guard with you. I too, 
Alas, have many sides which oft seem hard 
To reconcile. 

Templar. 
You pain me ; for suspicion 
Is scarce among my faults. 

Saladin. 

Whom, then, suspect? 
Nathan, it seems ; but how ? Nathan suspected ? 
Explain ; give your first proof of confidence. 



154 NAT II AX THE WISE. 

Templar. 
Naught have I against Nathan ; with myself 
I'm angry. 

Saladin. 

And for what ? 

Templar. 

For having dreamed 
That Jew could e'er be aught but Jew ; that waking 
I should have dreamed. 

Saladin. 

Out with your waking dream ! 

Templar. 
Of Nathan's daughter you have heard. The deed 
I did for her, I did — because I did it. 
Too proud to reap the thanks I had not sowed, 
I haughtily refused from day to day 
To see the girl. The father was away : 
But he returns ; he hears ; he seeks me out ; 
He thanks me ; hopes that I may like his daughter ; 
He talks of happy prospects for the future. 
And I allow myself to be persuaded ; 
Go, see her, find indeed a maiden — Ah, 
I must take shame upon me, Sultan. 

Saladin. 

Shame ? 
Because a Jewish maiden charmed you? Never. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 55 

Templar. 
Because my over-hasty heart, misled 
By Nathan's flattering words, scarce made resistance. 
Oh fool ! again I sprang into the names ; 
For now I sued, and now was I disdained. 

Saladin. 
Disdained ? 

Templar. 

Not utterly did he reject me, 
The cautious father : but he must consider ; 
Must make inquiries. Did I not the same ? 
Did I not first consider and inquire, 
When she was shrieking in the flames ? By heaven ! 
A noble thing to be so wise, so cautious ! 

Saladin. 
Nay ; be indulgent to his years ! How long 
Will his refusal hold ? till you turn Jew ? 

Templar. 
Who knows ? 

Saladin. 
Who knows ? He who reads Nathan better. 

Templar. 
That superstition which has grown with us, 
Know it for superstition though we may, 
Relaxes not for that its hold upon us. 
Not all who scorn their chains are free. 



156 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Saladin. 

Well said ; 
But Nathan — 

Templar. 

'Tis the worst of superstitions 
To deem one's own the most endurable. 

Saladin. 
That may be so ; but Nathan — 

Templar. 

As the one 
In which alone purblind humanity 
May trust, till it can bear the clearer day 
Of truth ; the only one — 

Saladin. 

Well, well ; but Nathan ! 
Such weakness cannot be the doom of Nathan. 

Templar. 
So thought I too ; but if this paragon 
Were so the common Jew, that Christian children 
He seeks to gain, to bring them up as Jews — 
What then ? 

Saladin. 

Who is it brings such charge against him f 

Templar. 
That very maiden he decoyed me with, 
With hope of whom he seemed so glad to pay 



NATHAJs THE WISE. 1 57 

The service I was not to be allowed 
To render her for nothing ; — she herself 
Is not his daughter, but a Christian child 
Lost to her faith. 

Salad ix. 
Whom yet he could refuse you ? 

Templar. 
Refuse or not, I have discovered him ! 
This tolerant pretender is exposed ! 
I'll set upon the track of this jew wolf 
In his sheep's clothing of philosophy, 
Hounds that shall tear and worry. 

Saladix (sternly). 

Christian, peace ! 
Templar. 
Peace, Christian, peace ! What ? Mussulman and 

Jew 
Are to insist on Mussulman and Jew, 
And only Christians must not act the Christian ? 

Saladix [more sternly). 
Peace, Christian, peace ! 

Templar. 
Ay, fully do I feel 
The burden of reproach that Saladin 
Compresses in those words. — If I but knew 
How Assad would have done, had he been here ! 
14 



158 nathan the wise. 

Saladin. 
But little better ; just as violent. 
Who taught you thus to bribe me with a word, 
Like him ? Indeed, if what you tell be true, 
I have been disappointed in this Nathan. — 
Still he's a friend : ne'er must one friend of mine 
Have quarrel with another. — Be advised ; 
Move cautiously ; denounce him not in haste 
To your fanatics ; rather hide a deed 
Your priesthood would appeal to me to avenge. 
Be not a Christian to the injury 
Of Jew or Mussulman. 

Templar. 

Almost too late ! 
Thanks to the Patriarch's eagerness for blood 
I shrank from being his tool. 

Saladin. 

Ere seeking me 
You sought the Patriarch ? 

Templar. 

In the storm of passion, 
The whirl of doubt ! Forgive ! No more of Assad 
Will you acknowledge in me now, I fear. 

Saladin. 
That very fear ! Methinks I know the faults 
From which our virtue grows. Cherish but this, 



NATHAN TEE WISE. I 59 

And those shall not weigh heavily against you. 
But go ; seek Nathan as he sought for you, 
And bring him hither. I must clear away 
All difference between you. Are you earnest 
About the maiden, be at rest. She's yours ; 
And Nathan pays the penalty for keeping 
A Christian child from eating pork. Now go ! 



Scene V. 
Saladix and Sittah. 

Sit t ah. 
Most wonderful ! 

Saladix. 
Confess, a handsome boy 
My Assad must have been. 

Sittah. 

If it be he 
The picture represents, and not the Templar. 
But how could you forget to learn his parents ? 

Saladix. 
And chief, his mother — if his mother e'er 
Were in our land — not so ? 

Sittah. 

It were well done. 



l6o NATHAN THE WISK 

Saladin. 
Naught likelier ; for such a favorite 
Was Assad with the beauteous Christian ladies, 
Was of the Christian ladies so enamored, 
The story ran — Nay> best not speak of it. 
Enough, I have him back ; with all his faults, 
With all the fancies of his too fond heart, 
Will have him back. O Sittah, must not Nathan 
Give him the maiden ? 

Sittah. 

Give her ? Leave her to him ! 

Saladin. 
True ; for what right has Nathan over her, 
If he be not her father ? Who preserved 
Her life, alone can claim the rights of him 
Who gave it. 

Sittah. 

How if you should place the maiden 
Beneath your own protection, Saladin — 
At once withdraw her from her wrongful keeper? 

Saladin 
Would that be necessary ? 

Sittah, 

Necessary *3k 

Indeed 'tis not ; my curiosity 
Alone suggests the counsel. There are men 
Of whom I'd know at once what girl they love. 






NATHAN TEE WISE. l6l 

Saladin. 
Send for her then. 

Sittah. 
Have I permission, brother ? 

Saladin. • 
Spare Nathan only ; Nathan must not think 
We want to force her from him. 

Sittah. 

Have no fear. 

Saladin. 
And I myself must learn what keeps Al-Hafi. 



Scene VI. 

The open court of Nathan s house, looking toward the 
palms, as in first scene of first act. Some of the 
wares therein mentioned are lying about unpacked. 
Nathan and Data. 

Daja. 
Oh, all is beautiful — all exquisite ! 
All— rgueh as only you could give. Whence came 
That silver stuff with golden vines upon it ? 
How costly was it? — That's a wedding-dress ! 
No queen could want a better. 
14* 



1 62 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Nathan. 

Wedding-dress ! 
Why wedding-dress ? 

Data. 

That was not in your mind 
When you were buying ; but that it must be, Nathan ; 
No other one than that. 'Tis as 'twere made 
To grace a bridal. See ; the ground of silver, 
A type of innocence ; the golden streams 
That twine themselves in all directions on it, 
A type of riches. Perfect, is it not ? 

Nathan. 
What fancies are you weaving ? Whose the dress 
That you're so learnedly interpreting ? 
Are you the bride ? 

Data. 
I? 

Nathan. 
Who then ? 

Data. 

I ? Good heavens ! 

Nathan. 
Who then? Whose wedding-dress? All this is yours, 
Yours only. 

Data. 

Mine ? All meant for me — not Recha ? 



NATHAX THE TTISX. 1 65 

Nathan. 

Another bale holds those I brought for Recha. 
Away with them ! off with your silken stuffs ! 

Data. 
No. tempter ; all the treasures of the world 
I would not touch, unless you swear to me 
This single opportunity to seize, 
Whose like heaven scarce a second time will grant. 

Nathan. 

How seize ? — the opportunity for what ? 

Data. 
Feign not such ignorance ! — In short, the Templar 
Loves Recha. Give her to him. Thus your sin, 
Whose secret I can keep for you no longer, 
Is ended ; Recha is restored to Christians — 
Becomes herself again — will be again 
What at the first she was ; and all your kindness, 
For which no words can give you fitting thanks, 
Heaps coals of fire no more upon your head. 

Nathan. 

The same old story to another tune, 

For which, I fear, it has no sense or measure. 

Data. 

How so ? 

Nathan. 
Against the Templar have I naught. 



1 64 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Rather to him than any in the world 

Would I give Recha. But — you must have patience 

Data. 
Patience ! that's your old story o'er again. 

Nathan. 
Vet a few days have patience. — See, who comes? 
A brother from the convent ? Ask his pleasure. 

Data. 
What can he want ? 

[She approaches and questions him % 

Nathan. 
Give — and before he asks. — 
(Could I approach the Knight, yet tell him not 
The motive of my curiosity ! 
Were that revealed and my suspicion false, 
Then has my fatherhood been risked in vain.) 
What is it ? 

Data. 

He would speak with you. 

Nathan. 

Admit him ; 
And leave us. 






NATHAN THE WISE. 10' 



Scene VII. 
Nathan and the Lay-brother. 

Nathan. 
(Would that Recha's father still 
I might remain ! — Why can I not, e'en though 
Without the name ? — That she herself would give, 
Did she but know how gladly I would own it.) 
What can I do to serve you, brother ? 

Lay-brother. 

Little.— 
I'm glad to see that Nathan keeps in health. 

Nathan. 
You know me then ? 

Lay-brother. 

Who knows you not ? Your name 
Has been imprinted in too many hands. 
For many years has it been writ in mine. 

Nathan {feeling for his purse). 
Come, brother, come ; let me refresh it. 

Lay-brother. 

Thanks I 
I take no alms ; 'twere stealing from the poorer.-— 
With your permission, I'd refresh in you 



1 66 NATIIAN THE WISE. 

The imprint of my own ; for I can boast 
That in your hand a thing of no small value 
By me was laid. 

Nathan. 
Your pardon — I am shamed ! 
^ay what it was, and take seven times its worth 
As an atonement. 

Lay-brother. 
Hark, while I shall tell 
How first to-day the memory of that trust 
By me confided to you was awakened. 

Nathan. 
Trust you confided me ? 

Lay-brother. 

Not long ago, 
On Quarantana, near to Jericho, 
I dwelt — a hermit. Arab robbers came, 
Destroyed my cell and little house of God, 
And took me captive ; but I happily 
Escaped their hands, md to the Patriarch 
I hither fled to beg another place, 
Where I might serve my God in solitude 
Until my blessed end. 

Nathan. 

I'm on the rack, 
Good brother. Make it brief ! The trust — the trust 
Confided to me ! 



NATBAIT THE WISE. I 6 J 

Lay-brother. 
Yet a moment, Nathan. 
The earliest vacant hermitage on Tabor 
The Patriarch promised me, and bade me stay 
Meanwhile within the convent as a brother. 
There am I now, and hundred times a day 
I long for Tabor ; for the Patriarch 
Puts every loathsome errand on me. Thus — 

Nat h an. 
Be quick, I pray you. 

Lay-brother. 

This is it. — A Jew, 
So somp one whispered in his ear to-day, 
Is living here among us, who has trained 
A Christian child as she had been his daughter. 

Nathan {amazed). 

What ? 

• Lay-brother. 
Hear me out ! — When he commissions me 
To ferret out this Jew without delay, 
No matter where ; and flies into a passion 
Against so black a crime, which he esteems 
The very sin against the Holy Ghost — 
The sin, that is, which of all other sins 
Brings greatest guilt upon us : though, thank God, 
We know not well in what that sin consists — 
Then suddenly my conscience was awakened ; 
The thought arose that possibly myself, 



1 68 NATHAN THE WISE. 

In years gone by, had furnished the occasion 
For this unpardonable sin. For say, 
Did not a groom deliver to your care, 
Some eighteen years ago, an infant child ? 

Nathan. 
How say you ?— 'Twas indeed — yes, surely — 

Lay-brother. 

Nathan, 
Look at me well ! — That groom was I ! 

Nathan. 

Was you? 

Lay-brother. 

The Knight from whom I brought it you was named. 
If I mistake not, Filneck — Wolf von Filneck. 

Nathan. 
You're right. 

Lay-brother. 

The mother had but lately died ; 
The father unexpectedly was forced 
To make retreat on — Gazza, as I think, 
Where the poor baby could not follow him, 
And so was sent to you. ; Twas in Darun, 
I think, we found you. 

Nathan. 
Right ! 



nathan the wise. 1 69 

Lay-brother. 

It were no wonder 
If memory played me false ; so many masters 
I've served, and this one for too brief a season. 
At Askalon soon afterward he fell. 
A man to love he was. 

Nathan. 

He was indeed. 
How many, many services I owe him ! 
He more than once preserved me from the sword. 

Lay-brother. 
Good ; all the readier must you then have been 
To adopt his little child. 

Nathan. 

You may believe it ! 

Lay-brother. 
Where is she, then ? She surely is not dead ! 
Grant she may not have died ! If no one else 
Have learned her story, then will all be well. 

Nathan. 
You think so ? 

Lay-brother. 
Trust me, Nathan ; thus I argue : 
If close beside the good which I propose 
Great evil lurk, I leave the good undone ; 
Since of the evil can be little doubt, 



I70 NATHAN THE WISE. 

But of the good there's much. 'Twas natural 
If you would train the Christian's daughter well, 
To train her as your own. — This have you done 
In love and truth — but to be so rewarded ? 
I'll not believe it. — Wiser had it been 
The Christian to have trained at second-hand 
A Christian ; but you would not then have loved 
The little daughter of your friend ; and children 
Need love, though but a wild beast's love it be, 
In those first years, above Christianity. 
Christianity will still find time enough. 
Have but the child in health and innocence 
Grown up before your eyes, in sight of God 
She's as she was. — Has not Christianity 
Its root in Judaism ? It oft has vexed, 
Provoked me e'en to tears, to see how Christians 
Forget our Saviour w T as himself a Jew. 

Nathan. 
Good Brother, you must intercede for me 
When hatred and hypocrisy shall rise 
Against me for a deed— ah, for a deed — 
You, you alone shall know it. Bear it with you- 
Into your grave. Ne'er yet has vanity 
Seduced me into telling it to man. 
I tell it only to yourself. I tell it 
To pious simplicity alone ; for that 
Alone can know what victories over self 
Are possible to the devout believer. 



NATHAX THE WISE. 171 

Lay-brother. 
Your heart is stirred ; the tears are in your eyes I 

Nathan. 
You found me at Darun — the child and you. 
You did not know that Christians just before 
Had murdered all the Jews that were in Gath — 
Men, women, children ; knew not that my wife 
And sons, seven hopeful sons, were there among 

them, 
And in my brother's house, where they had fled 
For safety, had to perish in the flames. 

Lay-brother. 
All-gracious God ! 

Nathan. 
Three days and nights Ld lain 
In dust and ashes before God, and wept 
When you arrived. Wept ? I had wrestled hard 
At times with God ; had stormed and raved ; had 

cursed 
Myself and all the world ; had sworn a hate 
Against the Christians, unappeasable. 

Lay-brother. 
I can believe it ! 

Nathan. 
Gradually my reason 
Returned to me. She spoke with gentle voice : 
"And yet God is : e'en this was God's decree ! 



172 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Up, then ! and practise what you've long believed 

To practise cannot be more difficult 

Than to believe, if you but will. Rise up !" 

I stood erect and cried to God : "I will I 

Oh, will Thou that I will P — Dismounting then, 

You handed me the child, wrapped in your cloak. 

All that you said to me, or I to you, 

Has been forgot. I know but this : I took 

The child ; I laid it on my bed ; I kissed it ; 

I threw myself upon my knees, and sobbed, 

"O God ! of seven, Thou grantest me one again !" 

Lay-brother. 
You are a Christian, Nathan ! Yes, by heaven, 
You are a Christian ! Never was a better ! 

Nathan. 
What makes of me a Christian in your eyes, 
Makes you in mine a Jew. — Happy for both ! 
But let us not unman each other longer. 
This calls for deeds.- — Although a sevenfold love 
Soon bound me to this lonely stranger girl — 
Although the thought of losing all my sons 
Again in her is death — if Providence 
Should claim her back from me, I will obey. 

Lay-brother. 
That perfects all ! That was the very counsel 
My heart had longed to give you, and already 
Had it been prompted by your own good spirit. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 73 

Nathan. 
Only must not the very first who comes 
Expect to tear her from me ! 

Lay-brother. 

Surely not ! 

Nathan. 
Who has no greater right to her than I, 
Must prove at least an earlier — 

Lay-brother. 

Surely, surely ! 

Nathan. 
Which nature and the ties of blood confer. 

Lay-brother. 
That I acknowledge. 

Nathan. 

Name me then the man 
Who bears relationship to her as brother, 
Or uncle, cousin — any kith or kin : 
To him I'll not refuse her— her so formed 
By nature and by training to become 
The jewel of every house, of every faith. — 
You know your master and his lineage 
More fully than myself, I hope. 

Lay-brother. 

But little. 
15* 



174 NATHAN THE WISE. 

I served the Knight, as you already know, 
Too short a time. 

Nathan. 
The mother's family, 
Know you not that at least ? Was she a Stauffen ? 

Lay-brother. 
'Tis possible. Methinks she was. 

Nathan, 

Her brother, 

Was he not Conrad ? was he not a Templar ? 

Lay-brother. 
If I mistake not. Stay ; I have a book 
That was the Knight's. I took it from his breast 
The day we buried him at Askalon. 

Nathan. 
Well ? 

Lay-brother. 

There are prayers in it — a breviary, 
We call it. That, thought I, a Christian man 
May still find useful. Not myself indeed ; 
I cannot read — 

Nathan. 
No matter ! To the point ! 

Lay-brother. 
I have been told that in this little book, 



NATHAN TEE WISE. 1 75 

At the beginning and the end, stand written 
The names of both their families, inscribed 
With his own hand. 

Nathan. 
The very thing we want ! 
Run, fetch me quick this book ! Its weight in gold 
I'll give you, and a thousand thanks besides. 
Run! 

Lay-brother. 
Willingly ; but 'tis in Arabic 
The Knight has written. 

Nathan. 

No matter ; let me have it ! 

God ! if I might the maiden still retain, 
And let her purchase for me such a son ! — 
Scarce possible ! — Well, come what will of it ! — 
But who betrayed it to the Patriarch ? 
I'll not forget to ask. — If it were Daja ! 



Scene VIII. 
Daja and Nathan. 

Daja {hurried and embarrassed). 
Think, Nathan ! 

Nathan. 
Well? 



176 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Daja. 

How terrified she was, 
Poor child ! There came just now a message from— 

Nathan. 
The Patriarch ? 

Daja. 
From the Sultan's sister, Sittah. 

Nathan. 
And not the Patriarch ? 

Daja. 

Sittah ! Hear you not ? 
The princess Sittah sends for her. 

Nathan. 

Whom ? Recha ? 
The princess send for her ? If it be Sittah, 
And not the Patriarch, sends — 

Daja. 

Why think of him ? 

Nathan. 
Have you heard naught from him of late ? Quite 

sure? 
And naught betrayed to him ? 

Daja. 

I, him ? 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 7* 

Nathan. 

But say, 

Where stand the messengers ? 

Data. 

Before the house. 
Nathan. 
'Twere best confer with them in person. Come ! 
If but the Patriarch have no hand in this ! ■ [Goes, 

Data. 
And I — I tremble with another fear. 
The fancied only daughter erf a Jew 
So rich as he, might tempt a Mussulman. 
'Tis over with the Templar — he will lose her, 
If I accomplish not the second step, 
And tell the girl her story. — Courage — courage ! 
I'll seize the earliest moment we're alone — 
The coming one, if I go with her there. 
A little hint of it upon the way 
Can do no harm. — On ! Now or never ! Courage ! 

[Follows him. 



I78 NATI1AX Till!: WISE. 



ACT FIFTH. 



Scene I. 

A room in Saladiris palace, where the money-bags an 

still lying. 

Saladin ; soon after, various Mamelukes. 

Saladin (as he enters). 
The gold still there ! and none can find the dervise ! 
He's stumbled on some chess-board and forgot 
Himself : why not me also ! — Patience ! — Well ? 

A Mameluke. 
The longed-for tidings, Sultan ! Sultan, joy ! 
The. caravan approaches from Kahira 
With seven years' tribute from the fruitful Nile. 

Saladin. 
Good, Ibrahim ; you're a welcome messenger. — 
At last, at last ! — My thanks for your good news ! 

Mameluke (wailing). 
(Out with them, then ! ) 

Saladin. 

Why wait you ? You may go. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 79 

Mameluke. 
Naught else then for the welcome messenger ? 

Saladin. 
What would you else ? 

Mameluke. 
No present for the bearer ? — 
I'm then the first whom Saladin has learned 
To pay with words. What honor ! I the first 
He haggles with ! 

Saladin. 
Take one of yonder bags. 

Mameluke. 
Not now ; not though you offered me the whole. 

Saladin. 
Defiant ! Come, these two are yours. — In earnest? 
He goes ? is more magnanimous than I ? 
For to refuse must harder be for him 
Than 'tis for me to give. — Here, Ibrahim ! — 
What has come o'er me that so near my end 
Would make me seem another than myself? 
Will Saladin not die as Saladin ? 
Then Saladin he ought not to have lived. 

Second Mameluke. 

News, Sultan ! 



l8o NATRAN THE WISE. 

Saladin. 
If you come to tell — 

Second Mameluke. 

The transport 
From Egypt has arrived. 

Saladin. 

I've heard already. 

Second Mameluke. 
Then I am come too late. 

Saladin. 

Wherefore too late ? 
Bear off a sack or two for your good-will. 

Second Mameluke. 
Makes three ! 

Saladin. 

If you can count as much. — Go, take them ! 

Second Mameluke. 
There's still a third to come — if come he can. 

Saladin. 
How so ? 

Second Mameluke. 
I know not but his neck is broken. 
Soon as we knew the caravan was come, 
Each started off full speed. The foremost fell. 



NATHAN TEE WISE. 151 

I got the start and kept it to the city, 

Where Ibrahim had more knowledge of the streets. 

But he who fell, my friend ! The man who fell ! 
Riiie hack to meet him I 

Second Mameluke. 

That indeed will I ! 
If he's alive, half of these hags is his. [Goes, 

Saladix. 
Another noble fellow ! Who besides 
Can boast such IMamelukes ? May I not think 
Twas my example helped to fashion th< 
Away then with the though: that at the 
They should grow used to any other ! 

Third Mameluke. 

Sultan. — 
Saladix. 
Was't you who fell ? 

Third Mameluke. 

No. I but come to announce 
That Emir Mansor, leader of the transport, 
Is now dismounting. 

Saladix. 

Bring him hither — quick ! 
Ah ; here he is ! 



1 82 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Scene II. 
Emir Mansor and Saladin. 

• Q 

bALADIN. 

You're welcome, Emir, welcome ! 
How has all gone with you ? — O Mansor, Mansor, 
You kept us waiting long. 

Mansor. 

This letter tells 
What tumult in Thebais your Abulkassem 
Was forced to quell, ere it was safe to start. 
I made all possible dispatch in coming. 

Saladin. 
I will believe you. — Take at once, good Mansor — 
And gladly will you not ? — another escort ; 
For you must on at once to Lebanon, 
With more than half this treasure to my father. 

Mansor. 
Right willingly ! 

Saladin. 
Make not your guard too weak. 
Things are no longer safe on Lebanon. 
Have you not heard ? — the Templars are astir. 
Be on your guard ! — But come, where halts the 

transport ? 
I'll see and urge it forward. — Then to Sittah ! 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 83 



Scene III. 
The palms before Nathan s house. 



4 



The Templar (walking to and fro). 

I will not enter. — He'll appear at last. — 

How quick, how eager to observe me once ! 

The time may come when e'en my frequent presence 

Before his house he will forbid. — Hm — hm ! 

But I am most unreasonable too. — 

Why so enraged against him ? As he said, 

He yet has naught refused ; and Saladin 

Has promised to persuade him. — Does the Christian 

Hold me in closer bonds than him the Jew ? — 

Who knows himself? Why should I else begrudge 

This little theft, that with abundant pains 

He wrested from the Christians ? Little theft ? 

A creature such as she ! A creature ! — whose ? 

Not of the slave who set the block adrift 

On life's waste shore, and there deserted it. 

Nay, rather of the artist who conceived 

In the rejected block the godlike form, 

And brought it into life. — Recha's true father 

Must be, despite the Christian who begot her, 

Must be in all eternity the Jew. — 

If I conceive her as a Christian maiden, 

Deprived of all that only such a Jew 



1 84 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Could give — say, heart — what were her charm for 

you ? 
But little, nothing ! — e'en her smile w r ere naught 
But gentle soft contraction of the muscles ; 
And that which prompts it would be undeserving 
Of all the grace it wears upon her lips. 
No, no — not e'en her smile ! As fair or fairer 
I've seen bestowed upon conceit and folly, 
On mocking jests, and flatterers and gallants. 
Did such enchant me or inspire the wish 
To flutter out my life within its beams ? 
I was unconscious of it ; yet am angry 
With him by whom alone this higher charm 
Was given. — Deserved I then the irony 
Of Saladin at parting ? Shame enough 
That Saladin should think so ! Oh, how small, 
Contemptible I must have seemed to him ! 
All for a girl ! — Curd ! Curd ! This will not do ! 
Come to yourself ! — If 'twere but Daja's gossip ; 
Naught after all that she could prove ? — But see ! 
He comes at last, engrossed in talk. With whom ? 
My friend the Brother ! Then he knows it all ; 
Has been discovered to the Patriarch ! 
I What has my madness done ? Oh that one spark 
Of passion should consume our reason thus ! 
Decide at once what next ! — I'll stand aside, 
And watch if they may not part company. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 85 



Scene IV. 
Nathan and the Lay-brother. 

Nathan. 
Thanks once again, good Brother ! 

Lay-brother. 

Mine to you. 
Nathan. 
Your thanks to me ? for what ? My obstinacy 
In pressing on you what you do not want ? 
If yours had yielded — good ; but you were firm — 
You would not be a richer man than I. 

Lay-brother. 
Besides, the book's not mine ; it is the daughter's— 
The daughter's sole paternal heritage. — 
She has yourself indeed. God grant that ne'er 
You may repent your goodness to her ! 

Nathan. 

Never ; 
That can I never ! Fear not ! 

Lay-brother. 

Nay, but then — ■ 
The Patriarchs and the Templars — 
16* 



i86 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Nathan. 

Can inflict 
No evil that shall make me aught regret — 
That least of all ! — But are you' well assured 
A Templar set your Patriarch on the scent ? 

Lay-brother. 
It must be ; for a Templar just before 
Had speech with him, and what I heard so sounded. 

Nathan. 
There is but one in all Jerusalem, 
And him I know : he is my friend ; a man, 
Young, noble, frank. 

Lay-brother. 

Right ; 'tis the very same. 
A difference lies between what one must seem 
Before the world, and what one is. 

Nathan. 

Too true. — 
Whoe'er he be, I dare his worst or best ! 
Your book, good brother, bids me all defy. 
I go with it straightway to Saladin. 

Lay-brother. 
Good luck to you ! Here will I leave you then. 

Nathan. 
Without a sight of her ? Come soon again, 
And often. — If the Patriarch but to-day 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 87 

Might not be told ! — Yet wherefore ? Nay ; this day 
Disclose whate'er you will. 

Lay-brother. 

Not I. Farewell ! [Goes.. 

Nathan, 

Forget us not, good Brother ! — Gracious God ! 
Why can I not fall down upon my knees 
Beneath this open heaven ! How has this knot, 
So long my secret terror, come unloosed 
As of itself! How light my heart has grown 
To think there's nothing further in the world 
I need to hide ; that I can walk erect 
Before my fellow-men as in Thy sight, 
O Thou, who needest not to judge of man 
According to his deeds — so seldom his ! 



Scene V. 
Nathan and the Templar. 

Templar. 
Wait ; take me with you, Nathan ; wait ! 

Nathan. 

Who calls? 
You, Knight ? Where were you that I met you not 
Before the Sultan ? 



1 88 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Templar. 
We but missed each other. 
Take it not ill ! 

Nathan. 
Not I ! but Saladin — 

Templar. 
You just had left him when — 

Nathan. 

You spoke with him ? 
Then all is well. 

Templar. 
But he would speak with both. 

Nathan. 
So much the better. Come ! I'm on my way. 

Templar. 
May I inquire who quitted you but now ? 

Nathan. 
You surely do not know him ? 

Templar. 

Was it not 
That honest Brother who is oft employed 
To scent the Patriarch's game ? 

Nathan. 

May be the same ; 
He's with the Patriarch. 



NATHAN THE WISE. l8<; 

Templar. 

Not a bad device 
To make simplicity the villain's scout. / 

Nathan. 
It must be dull simplicity — not honest. 

Templar. 
No Patriarch would acknowledge any honest. 

Nathan. 
Td vouch for him. The man would ne'er assist 
His Patriarch in aught evil. 

Templar. 

So at least 
He'd have us think. — But said he naught of me? 

Nathan. 
He named you not — knows not your name, perhaps. 

Templar. 
No ; hardly. 

Nathan. 

Of a Templar said he something — 

Templar. 
What? 

- Nathan. 

That which clearly proved he meant not you. 



I90 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Templar. 
Who knows ? Let's hear. 



Before the Patriarch- 



N AT HAN. 

That one of you accused me 



Templar. 
One accused you ? No ; 
There, with his leave, he lied. Believe me, Nathan ! 
I'm not a man who would disown his deeds. 
What I have done, I've done. Nor am I one 
Who would defend his every deed as right. 
Why blush to own a fault when I'm resolved 
I will redeem it ? Know I not what power 
Lies in such resolution ?— Hear me, Nathan ! 
I am the Brother's Templar who, he says, 
Accused you to the Patriarch. Well you know 
The provocation which had made my blood 
Rush boiling through my veins. Fool ! — I had come 
With all my heart and soul to throw myself 
Into your arms. How coldly you received me ; 
With what indifference — an indifference worse 
Than coldness ; how you labored studiously 
To evade me ; with what far-fetched questionings 
You wished to make it seem you gave me answer ; — ■ 
These things I must not dare to think of yet, 
If I would keep my temper. — Hear me, Nathan ! — 
In this excitement, Daja stole upon me, 



NATHAN THE WISH. jqj 

And flung her secret in my face. The key 
It seemed to all your strange demeanor. 

Nathan. 

How? 

Templar. 
Nay, hear me out ! — I fancied you unwilling 
To give again into a Christian hand 
What from the Christians you had stolen, and thought 
To settle it for good and all by putting 
The knife to your throat. 

Nathan. 

For good and all ? for good ? 
I see no good about it. 

Templar. 

Hear me, Nathan ! 
I did not well. May be, you are not guilty. 
That foolish Daja knows not what she says. 
She likes you not ; hoped thus to injure you, 
May be — may be ! I am a simpleton — 
Forever in extremes ; — now much too hot, 
And now as much too cold. That grant I too ! 
Forgive me, Nathan ! 

Nathan. 

If you take me so — 

Templar. 
In short — I did seek out the Patriarch, 



192 NATHAN THE WISE. 

But named you not. That, as I said, was false. 

I only set before him such a case 

To learn his judgment. That I might have spared 

Knew I him not already for a knave ? 

Why not have called you to account myself? 

Wherefore, poor girl, expose her to the risk 

Of losing such a father ? — What befell ? 

The Patriarch's baseness, faithful to itself, 

Restored me to my senses. — Hear me, Nathan — 

Hear to the end ! Suppose he knew your name — 

What then ? He has no right to take the girl 

If she belong to any but yourself. 

From your home only can he have the right 

To drag her to the cloister. — Therefore give — 

Give her to me, and let him come. Aha ! 

Let him beware how he shall take my wife ! 

Give her me — quick ! — be she your child or not ! 

A Christian, Jewess, neither — naught care I ! 

I'll put no questions to you — neither now 

Nor ever in my life. Be as it may ! 

Nathan. 
Deem you it necessary for me then 
To hide the truth ? 

Templar. 
Be as it may ! 

Nathan. 

I ne'er 

To you or any who had claim to know 



NATHAN THE WISH. 1 93 

Denied she was a Christian, and to me 
But an adopted daughter. Why, you say, 
Conceal it from herself? To her alone 
Need I excuse myself. 

Templar. 
Not e'en to her ! 
Let her ne'er look on you with other eyes. 
Oh, spare her the disclosure ! You alone 
Have still disposal of her. Give her me ! 
I pray you, Nathan, give her me ! I only 
Again can save her to you, and I will. 

Nathan. 
Could — could ! No longer possible — too late I 

Templar. 
How so — too late ? 

Nathan. 
Thanks to the Patriarch — 

Templar. 

Thanks to the Patriarch ! Wherefore thanks tc 

him? 
Has he desired to earn our thanks ? For what ? 

Nathan. 
That we have learned her family ; have learned 
Into whose hands she may be given up. 

Templar. 
The thanks I leave to those he has obliged. 
17 



194 nathan the wise. 

Nathan. 
From theirs must you receive her now, not mine. 

Templar. 
Poor Recha, how must all this fall on you ! 
What were a- happiness to other orphans 
Is your misfortune. — Nathan ! — Where are they, 
These relatives ? 

Nathan. 
Where are they ? 

Templar. 

Who are they ? 

Nathan. 

A brother first ; from him she must be sought. 

Templar. 
A brother ! And this brother, what is he ? 
Priest — soldier ? Let me hear what hope I have. 

Nathan. 
Neither — or both. I've not yet learned him quite* 

Templar. 
What more ? 

Nathan. 

An honest man ; to whom our Recha 
May well be trusted. 

Templar. 
Yet a Christian ! — Nathan, 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 95 

How can I understand you ?■ — Be not angry ! — 
Must she not play the Christian with the Christians, 
And take at last the character she plays ? 
Will not the grain you sowed so pure, be choked 
By weeds at last ? And you so careless of it ! 
This notwithstanding can you say — you say — 
She may be safely trusted with her brother? 

Nathan. 
I think it — hope it. Should she want for aught 
With him, has she not still yourself and me ? 

Templar. 
Can any thing be wanting her with him ? 
Will not dear brother give his little sister 
Enough of food and clothing, finery 
And dainties ? What can little sister want 
Besides ? — A husband, to be sure ! Well, well ; 
That too, in time, dear brother will provide ; 
The best that can be had ! and all the better 
The more he is a Christian. — Nathan, Nathan ! 
Why fashion such an angel to be marred 
By other men ? 

Nathan. 
Fear not ; she will remain 
Abundantly deserving of our love. 

Templar. 
Nay, say not that ; of my love say it not ! 
My love will brook no change in her — not one ; 



196 NATHAN THE WISE. 

No veriest trifle — e'en a name. — But hold ! 
Has a suspicion reached her of her fate ? 

Nathan. 
Perhaps ; yet hardly could I tell from whom. 

Templar. 
It matters not ; — I must, 1 will be first 
To let her know the fate that threatens her. 
My purpose ne'er to see, ne'er speak with her 
Till I might call her mine, is changed. I haste- 

Nathan. 
Stay ; whither would you go ? 

Templar. 

To her ; to her, 
To learn if in her maiden soul there lie 
Enough of manhood for the one resolve 
Which only would be worthy of her. 

Nathan. 

What? 
Templar. 
To let her heart no longer dwell on you 
Or on her brother — 

Nathan. 
But ?— 

Templar. 

To follow me ; 
Though 'twere to make herself a Moslem's wife. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 97 

Nathan. 
Stay ; you would find her not. She is with Sittah, 
The Sultan's sister. 

Templar. 
When was that — and why ? 

Nathan. 
If you would see the brother with them — come ! 

Templar. 
Whose brother ? Sittah's — Recha's ? 

Nathan. 

Both, perhaps. 
But come with me — I pray you, come with me ! 

[Leads him away. 



Scene VI. 
Sittah's harem, Sittah and Recha in conversation* 

Sittah. 
How I rejoice to see you, darling child ! 
But be not so reserved, so shy, so troubled ; — 
Be gay — more talkative — more friendly with me. 

Recha. 
Princess — 

Sittah. 

No, no ; not Princess : call me Sittah—* 
Your friend — your sister — mother, if you will ! 

17* 



I98 NATHAN THE WISE. 

That might I almost be. — So young, so wise, 

So good ; with so much knowledge ! — Ah, how much 

You must have read ! 

Recha. 
I must have read ! — Ah, Sittah, 
You're laughing at your foolish little sister. 
I scarce know how to read. 

Sittah. 

What? story-teller! 
You scarce know how ? 

Recha. 

My father's hand a little. 
I thought you spoke of books. 

Sittah. 

Yes, yes — of books, 
Recha. 
No ; I should find it hard to read in books. 

Sittah. 
Are you in earnest ? 

Recha. 
I am quite in earnest. 
My father cares not for that cold book-learning 
That's printed on the brain by lifeless signs. 

Sittah. 
What do you tell me ! — Yet he's partly right. 
Then all you know — 



NATHAN THE WISE. 1 99 

Recha. 

Is only from his lips. 
Scarce anything, but I could tell you how, 
And where, and why, my father taught it me. 

SlTTAH. 

Thus all is better woven into one : 
The whole soul learns at once. 

Recha. 

And Sittah too— 
Has surely little read, or nothing. 

Sittah. 

Why? 
I would not boast the contrary ; but why ? 
Your reason ; tell me candidly — your reason ? 

Recha. 
She is so true and honest ; so unspoiled ; 
Acts out herself so naturally ; — 

Sittah. 

Well ? 
Recha. 
My father says books rarely leave us so. 

Sittah. 
How wise a man he is ! 

Recha. 
Yes ; is he not ? 



200 NATHAN THE WISE. 

SlTTAH. 

How near he hits the mark ! 

Recha. 

Ah, does he not ? 
And yet this father — 

Sittah. 
What disturbs you, love ? 

Recha. 
This father — 

Sittah. 
Heavens ! You weep ? 

Recha. 

This father — Ah, 
I must speak out ;- — my heart must have relief ! 

[Throws herself, overpowered by her tears, ai 
Siiiatis feet 

Sittah. 
Recha ! What ails you, child ? 

Recha. 

This father — must— 
Ah, must I lose ! 

Sittah. 
Must lose your father ! Why ? 
Compose yourself! — Impossible ! — Stand up ! 

Recha. 
It shall not be in vain that you have offered 
To be my friend, my sister ! 



NATHAN THE WISE. 201 

SlTTAK. 

I am both. 
But rise ; else must I call for help. 

Recha {controls herself ] and rises). 

Forgive ; 
Your pardon ! — In my grief I had forgot 
To whom I spoke. No moaning, no despair 
Avails with Sittah. Naught has power with her 
But cold, calm reason. Whosesoever cause 
That pleads before her, conquers. 

Sittah. 

Well ? 
Recka. 



My sister, suffer not — oh, suffer not 
Another father to be forced upon me ! 



My friend, 



Sittah. 
Another father forced upon you, love ? 
Who has the power, the wish to do it ? 

Recha. 

Who ? 
My good, bad Daja has the wish, and claims 
The power. Know you her not, this good, bad Daja ? 
God pardon her for it — reward her for it ! 
Such good as she has done me — and such harm ! 

Sittah. 
Done harm to you ! Small good is in her then. 



202 nathan the wise. 

Recha. 
Nay, much — how much ! 

Sit t ah. 

Who is she ? 

Recha. 

She's a Christian, 
Who tended me in childhood with such care ; 
You cannot think ! She scarcely let me miss 
My mother. — God reward her ! — But besides, 
She so distressed and tortured me ! 

Sittah. 

With what ?' 
And wherefore ? 

Recha. 
Ah, poor woman ! As I said, 
She is a Christian, and from very love 
Mast torture me. She is of those fanatics 
Who think they know the universal, true, 
And only road to God. 

Sittah. 

I understand. 

Recha. 
And feel a charge upon them to conduct 
The feet of every wanderer thitherward. 
They scarce can otherwise. If it be true 



NATHAN THE WISE. 203 

This is the only road that leads aright, 

Can they resign themselves to see their friends 

Advancing on another which descends 

To death, eternal death ? They needs must love 

And hate one at the selfsame time. — Not that 

Has forced from me such loud complaints 

Against her. Gladly would I still have borne 

Her sighs and prayers, her threats and warnings— 

gladly ! 
For good and useful were the thoughts they roused, 
Besides, how not be flattered too at heart 
At being held so precious and so dear 
By any, that the thought of losing us 
For all eternity cannot be borne ? 

SlTTAH. 

'Tis true. 

Recha. 
But this — this is too much ! 'Gainst this 
I've no defence ; not patience, not reflection, 
Not anything ! 

Sittah. 
What? Whom? 

Recha. 

What she but now 
Pretended to reveal. 

Sittah. 
Reveal but now ? 



204 NATHAN THE W1SK 

Recha. 
But now. — Upon our way to you we neared 
A ruined Christian temple. Suddenly 
She stopped ; appeared to struggle with herself; 
Directed now to heaven and now on me 
Her streaming eyes. "Come/' finally she said, 
"We'll take the shortest path through yondef 

temple. ' ' 
She went ; I followed, gazing with affright 
Upon the tottering ruins. Once again 
She stopped ; and I beheld myself with her 
Before the steps of a decaying altar. 
Ah, how I felt, when here, with burning tears 
And wringing of her hands, she threw herself 
Upon the ground before me ! — 

Sittah. 

Darling child ! 

Recha. 
And by the Deity who there had heard 
So many prayers, and worked so many wonders, 
Conjured me — yes, with looks of true compassion- 
Conjured me to have pity on myself ! — 
At least to pardon her, for she must tell 
Her Church's claim upon me. 

Sittah. 

Ah, poor girl ; 
Tis as I thought. 



nathan the wise. 20$ 

Recha. 
I had been born, she said, 
Of Christian parents ; I had been baptized ; 
I was not Nathan's child — he not my father ! 
God ! God ! He not my father !— Sittah ! Sittah i 
Here at your feet again behold me — 

Sittah. 

Recha ! 
I pray you, rise ! My brother comes ! Stand up I 



Scene VII. 
Saladin and ihe preceding. 

Saladin. 
What trouble, Sittah ? 

Sittah. 
• She's beside herself 1 

Saladin. 
Who is it ? 

Sittah. 

You remember — 

Saladin. 

Nathan's daughter ! 



What ails her ? 



18 



20t> NATHAN THE WISE. 

SlTTAH. 

Child, control yourself! — The Sultan — • 

Recha {her head bowed to the ground, drags herself 

upon her knees to Saladin s fee f). 
I rise not ; look not on the Sultan's face ; 
Behold not on his brow and in his eyes 
The bright reflection of eternal love 
And justice, till — 

SlTTAH. 

Rise ; rise ! 

Recha. 

He promise me— 

Saladin. 
I promise ; — be it what it may ! 

Recha. 

No more 
Nor less than this — to leave to me my father, 
And me to him. I know not who besides 
Would be my father ; who can want to be. 
I will not know. — But is it only blood 
That makes the father — only blood ? 

Saladin (raising her). 

I see. 
Who was so heartless as to name the thing 
To you ? Is it already settled — proved ? 



NATHAN TEE WISE. 207 

Recha. 
It must be ; — Daja says 'twas from my nurse 
She learned it. 

Saladin. 
From your nurse ? 

Recha. 

Who felt constrained 
Upon her death-bed to confess it to her. 

Saladin. 
Upon her death-bed ? Possibly she wandered. — 
But were it true — you're right ! The blood alone 
Makes not the father — scarce a wild beast's father. 
At most, it but confers the earliest right 
To earn the name. Fear not ; — hark to my counsel ! 
When these two fathers come to quarrel for you, 
Dismiss them both and take the third ; — take me 
To be your father ! 

Sittah. 
Yes, dear Recha, yes ! 

Saladin. 
I'd make a right good father. — Hold ; — still better I 
What need of fathers ? What if they should die ? 
But seek betimes for one who would brave all 
To live for you. Has none such yet been found ? 

Sittah. 
Make her not blush ! 



208 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Saladin. 

The very thing I wished ! 
If blushes make the ugly fair, they surely 
Will make the fair still fairer. — I havebid 
Your father, Nathan, hither, and another — 
Another with him. Guess you not his name ? 
Hither — with your permission, Sittah. 

Sittah. 

Brother ! 

Saladin. 

Call up a rosy blush for him, dear child. 

Recha. 
A blush — for whom ? 

Saladin. 

Ah, little hypocrite ! 
Grow pale then, if you choose ; — just as you will 
And can. 

[A female slave enters and addresses Sitlahx 
Are they arrived already ? 

Sittah. 

Good ; 
You may admit them. — It is they, dear brother 1 



nathan the wise. 209 

Last Scene. 
Nathan and the Templar, with the preceding. 

Saladin. 
Welcome, my dear, good friends ! — You, Nathan, you 
Must I address the first. Send you and fetch 
Your money back whene'er you want it. 

Nathan. 

Sultan — 
Saladin. 
'Tis now my turn to be of sen/ice ; — 

Nathan. 

Sultan — 

Saladin. 
The caravan is come. I'm rich again 
As I've not been for many a day. Come, come ; 
Say what you need to start some enterprise 
Of magnitude. You tradesmen, like ourselves, 
Can scarce have too much money. 

Nathan. 

Why begin 
With such a trifle ? — There are weeping eyes 
That I am more concerned with drying. — Recha ! 

{Approaches her % 
You have been weeping ;— what distresses you ? 
Are you not still my daughter ? 
1 8* 



2IO NATHAN THE WISE. 

Recha. 

O my father ! 

Nathan. 
We understand each other. 'Tis enough ! — 
Be cheerful ; be collected. — Let your heart 
Be still your own : let but no other loss 
Have threatened that — your father is not lost ! 

Recha. 
No other ; none. 

Templar. 
None ! Then I was deceived. 
What we fear not to lose, we never thought 
Nor wished to own. — So be it. — That changes all. 
We came here, Saladin, at your command. 
But I misled you ; — take no further trouble. 

Saladin. 
Hasty again, young man ! Must everything 
Consult your pleasure then — all guess your thoughts ? 

Templar. 
But, Sultan — hear you, see you not yourself? 

Saladin. 
I do indeed ; — pity you made not sure 
Of your position. 

Templar. 
'Tis no longer doubtful. 



NATHAN THE WISE. 211 

Saladin. 
Who thus presumes upon a benefit, 
Revokes it. What you saved is not your own 
Because you saved it. Else as good a hero 
Were any thief whose greed will brave the fire. 

\_Approaches Recha to lead her to the Templar* 
Come, darling, come ; be not too strict with him. 
Were he aught else, were he less hot and proud, 
He might not have preserved you. Let the one 
Excuse the other. — Come ; put him to shame ; 
Do that which should be his — confess your love — 
Give him your hand ; and if he should disdain you— « 
Should he forget how infinitely more 
You did for him by this than he for you — 
What did he then for you ? get singed a little ! 
But what was that? — ^hen has he naught of Assad, 
Naught of my brother ; wears his likeness only, 
And not his heart. — Come, love ! 

Sittah. 

Yes ; go, love, go ! 
Your gratitude would deem that little — nothing. 

Nathan. 
Hold, Saladin ! hold, Sittah ! 

Saladin. 

What— you also ? 

Nathan. 
There is another has a right to speak. 



212 nathan the wise. 

Saladin. 
Who doubts it ? Such a foster-father, Nathan, 
Unquestionably has a voice — the first, 
If you desire. You see I know the whole. 

Nathan. 

Not quite the whole. — I speak not of myself. 
There is another, quite another, Sultan, 
Whom also I entreat you first to hear. 

Saladin. 
Who — who ? 

Nathan. 

Her brother. 

Saladin. 

Recha's brother ? 

Nathan. 

Yes. 

Recha. 

s My brother ! Have I then a brother ? 

Templar {rousing himself from his brooding). 

Where? 
Where is this brother ? Not yet here ? 'Twas here 
I was to meet him. 

Nathan. 
Patience ! 



NATHAN TEE WISE. 212 

Templar (with bitterness). 
He's imposed 
A father on her — why not find a brother ? 

Saladin. 
That also ! Christian ! such a base suspicion 
Would ne'er have come from Assad's lips. — Good i 

good ! 
Keep on ! 

Nathan. 
Forgive him ! I forgive him gladly. 
Should we do better, circumstanced like him, 
And young ? [Approaching the Templar kindly. 

Quite natural that want of trust 
Should breed suspicion, Knight. Had you confessed 
Your rightful name at once — ■ 







Templar. 










How? 










Nathan. 

You're 


no 


Stauffen. 


am 


I then ? 


Templar. 

Nathan. 








Your 


name's not Curd 


von 


StaufFen, 



Templar. 
What then ? 



214 NATHAN THE WISE. 



Nathan, 




Tis Leu von Filneck, 




Templar. 






How ? * 


Nathan. 






You start 1 


Templar. 




With reason. Who asserts it ? 





Nathan. 

I ; and more 
Have I to tell you. Yet I charge you not 
With falsehood. 

Templar, 
No? 

Nathan. 

That name may be your own 
With equal right. 

Templar. 
I think so ! (Well for him 
He said it. ) 

Nathan. 

For your mother was a StaufFen 
Her brother, to whose charge in Germany 
You were committed when the ungenial air 
Had forced your parents to the East again, 



NATHAN THE WISE. 215 

Was Curd von Stauffen, who adopted you 

Perhaps in place of children of his own. 

How long since you came hither ? Lives he still ? 

Templar. 
What shall I answer ? — All is as you say ; 
But he himself is dead. I came not hither 
Until the last detachment of our Order — 
But — but — how bears all this on Recha's brother? 



Your father — 



Nathan. 



Templar. 
How ? Him too — you knew him too r 



He was my friend. 



Nathan. 

Templar. 
Your friend ! How possible ? 



Nathan. 

The name of Wolf von Filneck did he bear ; 
But was no German — 

Templar. 
Know you also that ? 

Nathan. 
Was wedded to a German, and had followed 
Your mother into Germany awhile. 



2l6 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Templar. 

No more, I pray ! — But Recha's brother, Nathan— 
Her brother ? 

Nathan. 
Is yourself. 

Templar. 

I — I her brother ! 

Recha. 
Ah, he my brother ! 

Saladin. 
They are brother and sister ! 

Sittah. 
They brother and sister ! 

Recha {advancing to htm). 

Ah, my brother ! 

Templar {drawing back). 

Brother ! 

Recha {checking herself, and turning to Nathan). 
It cannot — cannot be I There's no response 
Within his heart. — We are impostors ! God ! 

Saladin {to the Templar). 
Impostors ! Do you think it — can you think it ? 
Yourself the impostor 1 All in you is false ; 
Face, voice, and bearing — nothing yours. Refuse 
To acknowledge such a sister ? Go — begone ! 



JTATHAN THE WISE. 217 

Templar {approaching him humbly). 
Mistake not you too. Sultan, my surprise. 
Ne'er saw you x\ssad at a time like this. 
Oh, be not thus unjust to him and me ! 

[Hurrying to Nathan. 
You give me, Nathan, and you take away — 
With full hands both. — But no ; you give me more, 
More infinitely than you take away. 

\Embracing Recha. 
My sister, O my sister ! 

Nathan. 

Henceforth Blanda 
Von Filneck. 

Templar. 
Blanda — Blanda — no more Recha — 
Your Recha then no more ? God ! — You reject 

her — 
You give her back her Christian name — reject her 
Because of me ! Oh, wherefore call on her 
To make atonement, Nathan ? 

Nat h ax. 

What atonement ? — 
My children, O my children ! For will he, 
The brother of my daughter, not become 
Another child to me ? 

[ While Nathan gives himself up to their car esses , 
Saladin, surprised and uneasy, turns to Sitlah. 
r 9 



2l8 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Saladin. 

What say you, Sittah ? 

SlTTAH. 

I'm deeply moved. 

Saladin. 
And I — I feel my heart 
Recoil before a feeling deeper still. 
Prepare yourself as best you may ! 

Sittah. 

For what ? 

Saladin (to Nathan). 
A word with you — a word ! 

[As Nathan joins the Sultan, Sittah approaches 
the brother and sister to express her sympathy ; 
Nathan and Saladin speak in ivhispers. 

Hark to me, Nathan ;— 
Did you not say — 

Nathan. 
What? 

Saladin. 

That from Germany 
Their father came not— was no German born ? 
What was he then — whence came he ? 

Nathan. 

That he ne'er 



NATHAN THE WISE. 219 

Confided to me. Naught of it I learned 
From his own lips. 

Saladin. 
And was he then no Frank — 
No native of the West ? 

Nat h ax. 
That he confessed. 
He spoke most readily in Persian. 

Saladin. 

Persian ! 

What need I more ? It is — it was himself ! 

Nathan. 
Who? 

Saladin. 

'Twas my brother, surely — 'twas my Assad ! 

Nathan. 

Since you yourself have guessed it, read in this 
Its confirmation. [Handing him the breviary x 

Saladin (opening it eagerly). 
Ah, his hand — that too 
I recognize again ! 

Nathan. 
They know of naught. 
It rests with you alone to say how much 
They e'er shall know. 



220 NATHAN THE WISE. 

Saladin {turning over the leaves). 

And shall I not acknowledge 
My brother's children — my own blood — my chil- 
dren — 
Not own them ? Shall I give them up to you ? 

(A^oud. ) 
'Tis they — 'tis they, dear Sittah — it is they ! 
My brother's and your brother's children — both ! 

\He hastens to embrace them. 

Sittah {following). 
What do I hear?- — It must, it must be so ! 

Saladin (to the Templar). 
You must — must love me now, hot-headed boy ! 

( To Recha. ) 
Now am I really what I asked to be — 
Like it or not ! 

Sittah. 
I too — I too ! 

Saladin (again to the Templar). 
My son — 
My Assad — Assad's son ! 

Templar. 

I of your blood ! 
Then were those dreams that clustered round my 

childhood 
Not merely empty dreams. [Falls at the Sultans feel, 



NATHAN THE WISE. 221 

Saladin [raising hint). 

Behold the knave ! 
He something knew of this, and yet could wish 
To make me be his murderer. Ah, the knave ! 

[They embrace. 



{The curtain falls.) 
19* 



ESSAY ON 

NATHAN THE WISE. 



BY KUNO FISCHER. 



\ Condensed.] 

Nathan the Wise is universally acknowledged to 
be among the most important poems in German 
literature, yet hardly any other great poem has 
as many enemies. Some critics think lightly 
of it as a work of art — a drama ; others, by far the 
greater number, oppose it on account of the re- 
ligious tone which they think underlies it. Both 
opinions have their leaders, and the leaders their 
chorus, which echoes the sentence and gives it cir- 
culation. Thus it has come to pass that this poem 
is besieged by an army of prejudices, which most 
persons accept before they are in condition to ex- 
amine the subject for themselves. The wisest course, 
under such circumstances, is to let the judgment of 
others affect us as little as possible, and to give our- 
selves up unreservedly to the influence of the work 
itself. Let us then proceed to consider, not so much 
the judgments passed upon Nathan, as the poem it- 
self. 



224 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 



GENESIS OF THE POEM. 

About the year 1770, there simultaneously ap- 
peared in Germany an unusual number of great 
works. Besides Lessing's Emilia Galotli, there ap- 
peared Goethe's first productions, Werther and Golz. 
Lessing was himself in the prime of his manhood, 
at the height of his art, from which he never de- 
clined, but in the fulness of time was to be snatched 
away. After the Emilia Galoiti he appears to have 
abandoned the field of poetry. His office in Wol- 
fenbiittel, the journey to Italy, the publication of the 
Wolfenbuttel Fragments, and the controversies con- 
nected with it, kept his interests and powers busy in 
other directions. Whoever is called to be a reformer 
must accept the duties of a soldier. These duties 
Lessing fulfilled with such great ability and success 
that Goethe and Schiller could speak of him in one 
of their Xenien as the Achilles of German literature. 

Lessing's poetical works stand in very close con- 
nection with his critical. The Liter aturbriefe are 
followed by Minna von Barnhelm, the Dramaturgic 
by Emilia Galoiti, and the Antigolze by Nathan the 
Wise. The connection in all three cases is evident. 
But in the last we should greatly err in attributing 
the origin of the Nathan entirely to the Antigolze, 
as if it were only a continuation of that controversy. 
The idea of our poem dates further back. Between 
the years 1774 and 1778 Lessing had published 
some fragments of a work left by the Hamburg Pro- 
fessor, Hermann Samuel Reimarus, as if they had 
been found among the manuscript treasures of the 
Wolfenbuttel library. He purposely, and by promise, 



ESS Ay OS NATHAN THE WISE. 225 

concealed the name of the author. The published 
extracts were therefore called the WolfenbtLttel Frag- 
ments, and the unknown author, the Wolfenbtittel 
Fragmentist. The work of Reimarus was, as it 
professed to be, a defence of the religion of reason 
by a refutation of that of revelation. It was an at- 
tack upon the biblical religion of both Testaments, 
founded on a criticism of the Canon. The Frag- 
ments, especially the last, upon the history and per- 
son of Jesus, kindled the controversy which espe- 
cially Melchior Gotze, a Lutheran preacher in 
Hamburg, began and carried on with most violent 
zeal. He aimed less at refuting the fragments 
(which Lessing would have liked, as he was by no 
means in sympathy with their spirit), than at con- 
victing of heresy, and dooming to damnation both 
author and editor. In the eyes of the Ham- 
burg pastor the Fragments were destructive of re- 
ligion, and therefore dangerous to the State, because 
subversive of belief in the Bible. He accused the 
editor of having made himself a participator in the 
crime, asserting that his answers to the unknown 
author were only for appearance' sake, and made 
the case worse rather than better. 

Lessing's reply, at once a defence and a refutation, 
are his famous letters against Gotze, the Aniigoize. 
They are specimens of controversial writing, unique 
in the domain of theological literature, from the 
bearing and importance of the question, the extent 
of ground covered, and the personal ability — unsur- 
passed by any man of his time — which Lessing 
brought to bear. His object was not only to defend 
the Protestants' right to freedom of inquiry against 
the Lutheran zeal for belief in the letter, but also tc 
maintain the independence of every religion, espe- 



226 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

cially the Christian, of all adherence to the letter. 
His argument was, that as religion is older than 
Scripture, Christianity older than the Bible, it must 
have existed before the Canon, and cannot therefore 
be made to depend on the letter of the Canon. The 
object was to search for the archetype of religion in 
the right place, in order to see its written image in 
the right light. Hence arose a multitude of ques- 
tions about the origin of the Canon, the spirit of 
primitive Christianity, and the essence of religion. 
The controversy between Lessing and Gotze was cut 
short. As early as 1778, the public authorities in- 
terfered. The Consistory of Brunswick wished the 
thing suppressed, and the ministry deprived Lessing 
of the privilege of printing his book, confiscated 
the Fragments, and forbade the continuance of the 
controversy. * 

At this time of public ill-treatment, to which were 
added heavy domestic sorrows, a fresh impulse was 
given to the idea of Nathan, which had been begun 
some years before. The night of the tenth of Au- 
gust, 1778, he resolved to finish the work. Early in 
November the full prose sketch was finished, and in 
the same month the metrical framework was begun. 
This enlarged the piece far beyond the limits of the 
sketch, and gave shape and life to the different char- 
acters. In March, 1779, the poem was completed 
in its present form. Thus is shown the connection 
between the Nathan and the Anligbtze in point of 



* Reimarus 1 complete work, and his theological position, have 
been treated in an exhaustive manner by D. Fr. Strauss, under the 
title of Hermann Samuel Reimarus and his Defence of the Rational 
Worshippers of God (1862) ; and the relations of Lessing to Reimarns, 
and of the Antigotze to Nathan the Wise, are similarly treated of in 
a discourse by the same author, entitled Lessing' s Nathan the Wist 
(1864). 



ESSAY ON NATHAN TEE WISE. 2 2 J 

time and matter. In the controversy with Gotze 
the question had come up, "What is the essence of 
Religion?" "What is the nature of the Religion 
which precedes belief in the letter?" In Nathan, 
Lessing meant to answer these questions by repre- 
senting to us the true and original conditions of re- 
ligion in their most living and unmistakable forms,- 
embodied in characters to which he could point and 
say, "That is what I mean." The check to his 
controversy with Gotze had changed the librarian 
back into the dramatist. ' ' I must see if they will 
let me preach undisturbed in my own pulpit, the 
theatre," he said. Thus polemics helped to give to 
the world this "son of his advancing old age," as 
Lessing himself called the Nathan : but they did 
not create it. And all of Lessing's friends who ex- 
pected from this connection of the poem with the 
controversy, a polemical or satirical drama, were 
happily disappointed. 

At a time when he wrote poetry with difficulty, 
Lessing could hardly have finished his Nathan in a 
few months, if he had not conceived it long before. 
Emilia Galoiti was begun fifteen years before it was 
completed. When Lessing told his brother of his 
determination to write the Nathan, he said it was a 
drama which he had sketched out many years be- 
fore. Perhaps the design of it goes back to the 
first period of his literary activity. At least we find 
a kindred theme among the subjects occupying 
him then. One of those Retlungen which Lessing 
wrote at that time, treats of an Italian philosopher 
of the sixteenth century, Hieronymus Cardanus, 
famed as a mathematician, who, in his de Subtililate, 
had compared the four religions of the world — the 
Heathen, Jewish, Christian, and Moslem. His 



2 28 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE, 

work took the form of a colloquy, in which each of 
the speakers represented one of the four religions, 
and defended it against the others. It was objected 
that the author had treated Christianity slightingly, 
and gave it the lowest place. Lessing, in his essay, 
defended him from this charge. He claimed that 
the opposite fault might rather be found with him — ■ 
that he did not furnish the Jewish and Mahometan 
religions with as strong arguments as he should. 
He might have made out a much better case for 
them. Had Lessing been pleading their cause, he 
w r ouid have made the Jew and the Mahometan speak 
very differently ; and he proceeds to sketch out a 
little plan of defence for them. This idea reminds 
us somewhat of our poem. The Christian, Jewish, 
and Mahometan religions enter the colloquial lists 
against one another. Each one is to plead its own 
cause, and in such a way that the anti-Christian 
religions may have justice done them. Why might 
not the thought even then have occurred to him of 
treating this subject dramatically ? 

Yet Lessing needed for this a more personal and 
living subject than he could draw from Cardanus's 
colloquy. He found it in Boccacio's Decame- 
ron. The story is briefly this. Saladin's treasury is 
empty. He needs large sums of money, and knows 
not where to obtain them. In this emergency he 
remembers that there lives in Alexandria a Jew, 
Melchisedek — rich and usurious. He sends for 
him, and tries by a captious question to bring him 
into his power. The Jew must tell the Sultan which 
of the three laws he considers the true one, the 
Jewish, Christian, or Saracen. However he may 
answer, there seems no escape. If he says the 
Jewish, he insults the Sultan's faith ; if he names 



I 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 2 2g 

any other, he denies his own. The Jew's decision 
is soon made. He answers with the story of the 
three rings, in nearly the same way that it is told in 
Nathan the Wise. 

Yet there is one important difference between 
Lessing and Boccacio. With the latter, the ring is 
only a jewel, entitling the possessor to nothing but 
the inheritance and the position of head of the fam- 
ily. With Lessing. on the contrary, it bears a higher 
significance. ' ' It had the secret power of giving 
favor, in sight of God and man, to him who wore it 
with a believing heart.'" 

In Nathan, the ring has the power of winning 
hearts, therefore of ennobling hearts, for the latter 
is made the condition of the former. Only he who 
sows love, reaps love. He who receives the most 
love, because he has given the most, is undoubtedly 
in possession of the true ring. But all three are dis- 
puting. Each considers himself the favored one, 
and the others impostors. Each one hates the 
others. So long as this intolerant, selfish strife 
continues, the treasure of love is not among them ; 
so long the true ring remains undiscovered ; so long 
all three that are produced are counterfeit. And 
how if the true ring should declare itself? if its 
power should begin to work ? Then one is the 
most beloved, and must therefore have earned love ; 
he must have conquered the hearts of the others. 
And if one is the best beloved, there, must be love, 
and therefore purity of heart, in the others. Each 
one will, in proportion to his power of self-renun- 
ciation, love his neighbor, understand his views, 
and practise forbearance. There is a toleration 
which the world commends, and which most men 
practise, priding themselves upon it as i virtue, 

20 



230 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

though it is the easiest thing in the world. It re- 
quires us only to be indifferent to the beliefs of 
others. When we have once thrown religion upon 
that heap of things we characterize as "trash," it is 
very easy not to concern ourselves about it ; n other 
people, especially as the reasoning faculty is thereby 
saved a great labor. I know not whether this so- 
called toleration is better than its opposite. More 
convenient it certainly is, and just as certainly it is 
not genuine toleration ; for real toleration bears 
with the beliefs and habits of others, not from in- 
difference, but from comprehension — from knowl- 
edge of human nature — from that interest which 
Leibnitz well calls "the love which is identical with 
wisdom." 

THE PLOT. 

This idea determines the purpose and subject of 
the poem. What appears in the fable "of the rings 
as the distant goal of the ages — the perfect recon- 
ciliation of the human race, after emerging, puri- 
fied, from their sectional religions — the poem aims 
to anticipate and present to us, on a reduced scale, 
in a family circle in which worthy representatives of 
the three hostile religions are united after a long 
separation. A story had therefore to be invented 
which should bring about such a union of Jew, 
Christian, and Moslem. This story is, as Lessing 
expresses it, ' ' the interesting episode which he has 
woven about the tale of the three rings." 

Moral power is measured by the obstacles met 
and overcome. In times when the world is glutted 
with sectional hatred, and wars are w r aged in the 
name of religion, true toleration — pure love of hu- 



I 



ESSAY OX NATHAN TEE WISE. 23 1 

manity, founded on unselfishness — will be best, be- 
cause most severely, tested ; and in just such times 
will this be manifested in certain rare characters. 
The Crusades, therefore, form an appropriate theatre 
for our story. After the religious passions have un- 
dergone an unusual strain, there is an inevitable re- 
action. The most violent intolerance gives place to 
that easy tolerance which begins to neutralize all 
religious differences. True toleration is something 
different from this. The fourth Crusade gives marked 
evidence that the interest in religion was diminish- 
ing with the passions it engendered, and that a dif- 
ference of belief had in some cases no longer a 
dividing power. A Templar goes over to Saladin ; 
a Christian king knights a Mussulman — the Sultan's 
cousin ; and even an alliance by marriage is planned 
between Saladin and Cceur de Lion. It is the period 
when the Jewish and Moslem culture stands so high, 
that their philosophers can instruct the Christian 
theologians in regard to Aristotle, and influence 
Christian culture in many important ways. 

Especially did the Crusades represent and produce 
a great crisis in the religious condition of the Chris- 
tian world. They worked upon the religious pas- 
sions — inflaming, blunting, purifying them. Their 
effect stands in marked contrast to their cause. The 
Crusades sprang from a passionate yearning for a 
faith : after that yearning was satisfied, they necessarily 
ended in one of those great and fruitful disenchant- 
ments which enrich the world so much, and are 
never bought too dearly. The Crusaders sought, 
and resolved to win, the sepulchre of Christ : and 
what they found, won, and lost again, was — a sepul- 
chre. They made for themselves the discover}- that 
the grave was empty, — and, through their experience, 



232 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

the saying by the well of Samaria received a ne\s 
fulfilment : " God is a spirit, and they who worship 
him, must worship him in spirit and in truth." We 
may say that this great tragedy purified the faith 
through the passions, and was, to use an expression 
of Aristotle, " A true katharsis." 

The source from which he took his theme led 
Lessing back to the time and person of Saladin, who 
was ruler of Jerusalem toward the end of the 
twelfth century, from 1187 to 1193. The chrono- 
logical contradictions, which Lessing did not attempt 
to avoid, prevent our assigning an exact year to the 
supposed events. 

On the side of art, the composition has undeniable 
faults. What a difference, in this respect, between 
it and the Emilia Galotti ! In Emilia Galotti the 
thread of the drama is tightly drawn, the flow of 
incidents is smooth and natural, and the motive of 
every action consistently dramatic. In Nathan the 
separate threads are loosely and artificially joined, and 
the incidents are not always consistent with the char- 
acters, but often are mere episodes of one another. 
There is hardly anything less characteristic for the 
dramatic poet than the resemblance of two faces; 
it can be made obvious by no manner of action 
or any poetical means. The author of Laocoon 
was perfectly aware of this. And yet he uses this 
motive twice in Nathan, not only incidentally, but 
as of effective and decisive influence. It is lucky 
that the Templar resembles his father so much — 
lucky that the Sultan recognizes this resemblance at 
the last moment — lucky that Nathan himself discov- 
ers the same resemblance in time. The whole story 
at last turns upon the features of the Templar. So 
superficial, in the literal sense of the term, dramatic 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 233 

motives must not be. This connection between the 
Templar's countenance, the Sultan's pardon, and 
Recha's deliverance has, no doubt, a tendency to set 
forth a succession of natural events in the light of a 
miraculous ordinance, and to show therein the ways 
of a Divine Providence ; but, unhappily, the art of 
the dramatic poet cannot claim for the chain of 
events which it forms, the same faith as for the provi- 
dence of God. 

Were Lessing's Nathan nothing but a family drama, 
and this family history the main point of the poem, 
the composition would be a failure in more than one 
respect. But the story is only the means which Les- 
sing uses to bring out his idea, and he treats it as 
that idea requires, at the risk of mixing contradic- 
tory elements. In a drama proper, it is true, the 
plot, or, as Aristotle calls it, the "mythus," should 
have the first consideration. Upon this point Les- 
sing agrees perfectly with Aristotle. He was aware 
of this weakness in Nathan, and therefore called it, 
not a drama, not a play, but "a dramatic poem." 

THE CHARACTERS. 

Some say that in the characters of his poem Les- 
sing intended to represent the three religions : that 
in the Patriarch, Daja, the Templar, and the Lay- 
brother he personified Christianity ; in Nathan, 
Judaism ; in Saladin, Sittah, and Al-Hafi, Islam- 
ism. There are even external objections to this 
view. Where does it put Recha ? Al-Hafi too, with 
his predilection for the Parsees, and his longing for 
his teachers by the Ganges, is hardly a pure type of 
Islamism. But the internal objections are still 
stronger, as I shall presently prove in detail. It is 
20* 



234 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

absurd to suppose that Lessirig meant to present us 
with types of the three religions. And this of itself 
disposes of the accusation frequently made, similar 
to that from which he himself had endeavored to 
defend Cardanus, of his evidently having slighted 
and degraded Christianity, by choosing the worst 
character in the piece for its type, while Judaism 
has the best. Only a superficial reading of the 
poem would so judge it. Equally erroneous is the 
idea that Lessing wished to defend and justify the 
enlightened, perhaps the deistical religious views 
against the orthodox. Nathan, in that case, would 
be the same in a dramatic form which Reimarus's 
work was in a critical, a defence of the rational 
worshippers of God. The poem deals by no means 
with definite creeds or theological doctrines. Recha 
says, "But all" the more consoling was the lesson, 
that our faith in God depends not on our views of 
Him." 

The one spring of all the characters lies deeper. 
It is that which Lessing wished to set before our minds 
in the story of the three rings — the difference between 
true and false religion. The true basis of religion 
is self-renunciation, which enlightens the under- 
standing in proportion as it purifies the heart, and 
bears its richest fruit in that love whose source is a 
right knowledge of human nature. 

But in what different proportions do we find the 
true mixed with the untrue, the genuine with the 
counterfeit, renunciation of self with the delusions 
of the imagination and the passions ! From one 
side or another a shadow falls upon the light of the 
soul and checks its aspirations. Here we might 
imagine a group of widely differing characters, in 
which the true idea is working its way out of the 



ESSAY 027 XATHAX THE Wi<E 255 

untrue, until it reaches the measure :: its ;:e::"r;: de- 
velopment. 

THE PATRIARCH. 

In such a group of characters, the direct opposite 
to the truly religious should not be wanting. There 
is a form of selfishness which puts on the outward 
show of religion, with full consciousness :: the 
is religious hypocrisy, whose proto- 
type is Tartuffe. But there is a step below even 
Tart uffe : — when the egotist believes ims elf in all 
sincerity to be a man of God, and his lesigns to be 
well pleasing I- when religion is nc: the 

mask, but the coat of mail in which egc 

s in a fortress — safe, comfortable, bullet- 
proof, even beyond the reach of exj -ich, 
by the conscious hypocrite, .ided 
and guarded against 

The type of this form is the Patriarch. Heartless 
to inhumanity, and so harden feel- 

f generc ble of under- 

standing them, he lives under the _:enerous pro- 
tection of Saladin ; knc Saladin has 
life and liberty upon the Templar, and yet 
to the Templar that he sh nld use this very lit 
to become a spy up:: [in, and his mure 
He hears of an orphan Christian child brought up 
by a his own, bu: sees : 
this tender circum :uttherobtr soul, 
and thinks that it had been better for th ::> let 
the child pe:: 

There is no faint emotion of humanity in his soul, 
which he is trying tc -::rle in obedience to his 
Church. Were he only a blind instrument, his sub- 



236 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

mission might be a sign of that self-renunciation 
which has been the strength of the Church. But 
there is nothing of this in him — nothing either of 
its humility or its pride. His own interests are up- 
permost with him. 

He hates the Sultan, whose rule is naturally less 
agreeable to him than that of an orthodox king, and 
seeks to rid himself of it by treason and assassina- 
tion. But this does not deter him from appealing 
to him against the Jew who has brought up a Chris- 
tian child in his own faith, or perhaps in none. 
He is prompt to convince the Sultan of the necessity 
of religion in the State, and he thus makes religion 
itself serve him as a means to power. Yet he 
remains the same ready servant of any power, no 
matter how hateful, that may be dangerous to him. 
No sooner does he hear that the Templar is sum- 
moned before Saladin than he changes his tone : 

" Ah !— The Knight, I know, 
Found favor with the Sultan. I but pray 
To be remembered favorably to him." 

We see that he would crawl if the Sultan stood 
before him. 

This Patriarch has not the least vocation for 
martyrdom. He will take good care never to sacri- 
fice himself. Even his intolerance and fanaticism 
are kept within the bounds of self-interest. His 
religion has agreed with him well. Lessing's few 
words describe him — " A red, fat, jolly prelate/' 

We look for characters of the type of the Patri- 
arch not only x among prelates, but wherever pub- 
lic ends, whether political or religious, whether 
those of a whole community or of a sect, are made 
subservient to individual interest. The type re- 
mains the same under the most various forms. 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 237 

When these persons are in authority, we may be 
sure the Jew will go to the stake. As long as the 
power is with Saladin, whom they secretly hate, we 
may be sure of rinding them in waiting with their 
assurances of submission — "I but pray to be re* 
membered favorably to him. " 



DAJA. 

In the Patriarch, pride of faith and egotism of 
faith are simply pride and egotism, destitute of 
every sort of piety and disinterestedness. But we 
should be unjust to human nature did we conclude 
that bigotry is incapable of any nobler shape and 
impulse. Men do not generally make their faith ; 
they receive it — receive it under the best and noblest 
influences that they can. The conviction of pos- 
sessing the true faith is therefore a necessary result 
of religious training. From this readily arises a 
religious conceit, which in narrow natures amounts 
to bigotry and arrogance. Religion is looked upon 
as a piece of property to make a show of, like any 
worldly possession. This is doubtless a very low 
form of religious culture, but not an utterly false 
one. It has only stood still in the first infantile be- 
ginnings of religious development, where faith is 
without understanding. It is the ordinary, imma- 
ture form of piety — true and sincere in its way, 
acting up to what understanding it has, and know- 
ing no better. In such cases the heart is not 
lacking in good intentions as much as in that 
education without which the best intentions are 
perverted and misled. 

A type of this very common form of religion is 



238 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

Daja. She is actuated by two impulses — her love 
for Recha, to whom she clings with all fidelity and 
devotion, and the firm conviction, mechanically 
acquired, that only in her Church can men be saved. 
So her love to Recha is turned into fear for her salva- 
tion. In such a disposition unselfishness is cramped 
by ignorance and vanity. Out of love to Recha she 
wants to save her, and does not see that the separa- 
tion from Nathan must break her heart. It is some- 
what suspicious in so devout a Christian, that she 
wants to save Recha from the Jew by marrying hei 
to the Templar. Daja's faith becomes so tolerant as 
to disregard the vows of a Christian Order, if she can 
only make a match ! Her self-love is as great as 
h er affection for Recha. This attachment furthers 
her own little interests. Nathan knows Daja better 
than she knows him. When she speaks of her 
conscience, Nathan says : 

" Let me but tell you first 
What stuffs in Babylon I bought for you I" 

Her dearest wish is to take Recha back to Europe — 
to her faith, and her home. But her own interest is 
not forgotten. She calls out to the Templar, after 
having betrayed the secret of Recha's birth : 

" But when you take her back to Europe, Knight, 
Pray, leave me not behind." 

So her religion, like her love, is half selfishness. 



THE TEMPLAR. 

Let us now substitute for bigotry a character 
totally free from it, regarding it as worthy of ridicule 
and condemnation, lifting against it the whole force 
of a disinterested and magnanimous heart, and a 



s\ 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 239 

fulness of passionate scorn. In this scorn lies a 
danger. Contempt of error involves pride in being 
free from it. This pride betrays immaturity, igno- 
rance. Soaring above intolerance and fanaticism, in 
its very flight it loses itself in intolerance and fanat- 
icism. Lessing knew the inconsistency well, and 
was without a trace of it himself. As Herder has 
excellently said, he was no freethinker, but a right- 
thinker. The hasty free-thinker esteems himself 
infinitely better than the slaves of bigotry, and 
despises them for the very reason that they esteem 
themselves. Where the spirit of free-thinking, born 
of a pure and noble impulse, takes the direction of 
pride, it finds the barrier at which the capacity for 
self-renunciation is checked and corrupted. 

A well-drawn type of such a character is the 
Templar. His Order has imposed upon him chains 
which he writhes under and at last inwardly shakes 
off. The wars of religion, in which his life has 
been passed, have given him an experience of re- 
ligious fanaticism. The spirit which has begun to 
spread through his Order favors his private indiffer- 
ence to creeds, and he expresses himself with pas- 
sionate violence whenever he encounters what he 
takes for religious self-sufficiency. Where could 
this be greater than among the people which esteems 
itself the chosen of the Lord ? Hence his fierce 
contempt of the Jews. The words which he igno- 
rantly and unjustly aimed at Nathan would apply 
well enough to himself: "Not all who scorn their 
chains are free." 

Yet these qualities in the Templar are so well 
managed, and their origin so clearly explained, that 
we do not expect and hardly wish them to be other- 
wise. The experience of his life has shown him 



240 ESSAY ON NATHAN TEE WISE. 

only the dark side of the different religions, has 
aroused in him only a bitter hatred of bigoted con- 
ceit. He is young, and, after the manner of youth, 
quick to reject a thing wholly which seems to him 
in one respect unjust. 

The Templar's is a rare nature. He has one 
trait in common with his poet, which, simple as it is, 
is seldom found. He is perfectly true ; he will seem 
nothing he is not. Even his mistakes are so sincere 
and undisguised that they soon yield to fuller 
knowledge. If we set aside the bonds of faith 
imposed by his Order, which, after all, have not 
fettered him much, we shall find the white mantle, 
with its red cross, an appropriate badge for him. 
The noble traits which constituted the power of the 
Order are in harmony with his personal inclina- 
tions — heroism, contempt of death, renunciation 
of the world. In these he is a true Templar. 

His early renunciation of the world makes him 
abandon himself to solitude, resent every intrusive 
approach, feel a weariness of life creeping over him, 
and a disposition to sadness in the very fulness of 
his youth. Misanthropy, as a principle, is never 
just, and proves itself false by being always linked 
with an exaggerated self-consciousness, and the in- 
voluntary satisfaction it occasions is of the nature of 
egotism. A misanthropy acquired so early in life 
as the Templar's has too little knowledge of men. 
Its judgments are harsh, and applied by whole- 
sale. He reasons thus : They are all egotists, even 
in their religion, where they should be least so ; 
and the Jews are the worst, because their religion 
obliges them to be egotists ; they first started this 
finding fault with others, first called themselves the 
chosen people, first had the arrogance to set up 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 24 1 

their God as the only true God. And the next step 
is — "Each Jew is like all Jews." 

Nathan, however, reads the Templar's heart, and 
recognizes the magnanimity capable of self-sacrifice, 
darkened by a pride amounting almost to self-exal- 
tation. He gradually removes the barrier between 
them, and the two recognize in one another the 
same aspirations of an enlightened, unshackled 
humanity. 



THE LAY-BROTHER. 

The unselfishness of the Templar is crippled by 
scorn of the world and mankind. He inwardly 
revolts against the bigotry that he sees dominant in 
the religions of the world : this leads to misan- 
thropy, misanthropy to pride, and pride to that 
glorification of self which is inconsistent with self- 
renunciation. Take from self-renunciation this 
limitation which oppresses and obscures it, substi- 
tute for self-glorification its extreme opposite — self- 
depreciation — -and you have a character of the hum- 
blest sort ; one of those insignificant natures which 
cannot make themselves insignificant enough — 
which prefer to live away from men, or, if among 
men, to be always obedient and submissive. Our 
poem furnishes us with this necessary type in the 
Lay-brother. Too gentle to hate those who differed 
from him, and too peaceable to lead the wild life 
of a soldier, he became a hermit. Now he is a friar 
at Jerusalem, and must be obedient to the Patriarch's 
orders. He will become a tool of the basest curiosity, 
a spy, if he allows himself to be used so. Obedient 
and submissive he certainly is, but not so blind nor 



242 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

so simple as the Patriarch supposes. He knows 
enough of human nature to see through the Pa- 
triarch, and is too pure to serve his evil purposes, 
too cunning to be as cunning as he would have him. 

In his religion, compassion and love, as well as 
submission, are all-important. So far he is a true 
Christian. The conversation with Nathan, when he 
warns him of the spying tricks of the Patriarch, 
admirably expresses the character. Had the Jew 
taken compassion on the Christian child, been a 
loving father to the orphan, only to fall a victim to 
the Inquisitor ? The simply human and truly pious 
mind of the Brother cannot frame the thought. 

The Patriarch and the Lay-brother — one of the 
highest dignitaries of the Church, and one of the 
humblest of the laity ! The question to be decided 
is the fate of a child. The prelate would have the 
child perish in misery rather than be saved by a Jew. 
The Brother only thinks — "Children need love/' 

The Lay-brother and the Templar both hostile to 
religious fanaticism ! How much wiser the Brother 
in his simple piety than the Templar in his proud 
independence ! The Templar sees in the Jew only 
the self-sufficiency of his creed ; the Brother sees in 
the Christian's hate of the Jews, only hate. 

" It oft has vexed, 
Provoked me, e'en to tears, to see how Christians 
Forget our Saviour was himself a Jew." 

The Lay-brother and Nathan — the Christian and 
the Jew ! When Nathan tells him at what a moment 
he received the Christian child, how his wife and 
seven sons had just been slain by the Christians, 
how he had taken the child, kissed it, thanked God 
for it — "Of seven, Thou grantest me one again !" 
— the Brother exclaims : 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 243 

" You are a Christian. Nathan ! Yes. by heaven, 
You are a Christian ! Never was a better '." 

And Nathan answers : 

" What makes of me a Christian in your eyes. 
Makes you in mine a Jew.— Happy for both !" 

Yet, genuine as the piety of the Lay-brother is, 
there is something ignoble in it. He is fleeing 
from the world — he fears its contact. He is at ease 
only when free from the cares and duties involved 
in association with men. He feels insecure amidst 
human activity, where the best deed may have fatal 
consequences. The good and the evil are so closely 
woven together, that the two can hardly be distin- 
guished. To avoid the evil, he must beware even 
of the good. But is there any good to be found 
without this dangerous neighborhood? Renuncia- 
tion of the world is less than overcoming the world. 



THE DZRVISE. 

It is difficult to find the happy mean in renuncia- 
tion of the world ! In the Templar it is joined to 
pride and passion ; in the Lay-brother, to humility, 
which degenerates into pusillanimity. It makes the 
Templar bitter, the friar powerless. 

There is a renunciation of the world, which is 
cramped by no such limitations, perfectly unarti- 
ficial and unconstrained, in which the soul is con- 
scious of its full power and the blessedness of free- 
dom. This form of it is native to the East. Its 
successful type in our poem is the dervise, Al-Hafi. 
There is nothing in the world to fetter the dervise ; 
no passion ensnares him, no good allures him, no 
master keeps him in dependence. He possesses 



244 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

nothing, and wants nothing. His is the poverty 
of a beggar and the independence of a king. What 
worked upon this beggar to forsake his contempla- 
tive life and become the comptroller -of Saladin's 
wealth ? Was he avaricious, or did the Sultan dis- 
cover in the dervise an undeveloped financier? 
Neither. Saladin wanted only the dervise, the man 
who has the virtue of not wanting anything and not 
having anything ; he wanted the beggar who would 
be tender of the poor, and give free play to the 
royal generosity. And these generous motives satis- 
fied the dervise. But Al-Hafi is too clear-sighted to 
be long deceived by an ideal He soon makes the 
discovery that the management of the public treasure 
requires other qualities than the generosity of the 
king and the humanity of the treasurer ; that the 
best dispositions of the heart are poor agents where 
the public weal is concerned ; that this benevolent 
ideal is perverted into folly and confusion when the 
public treasure is dissipated in gifts and charities. 
The benevolent and generous king is in danger of 
becoming a plague upon mankind, and finally a 
prey to the covetous. "When princes are the vul- 
tures amidst the carrion, it is bad enough ; but 
when they are the carrion amidst the vultures, 'tis 
ten times worse !" 

The dervise sees the folly into which Saladin is un- 
consciously leading him. This knowledge makes 
him dissatisfied with himself. ' ' O fool ! The fool 
too of a fool \" He must condemn the folly ; must 
give the thing its right name ; must atone for his 
self-deception by the frankest acknowledgment of it. 
And yet in Saladin's lavishness is a magnanimity to 
which Al-Hafi feels himself akin. He cannot help 
tracing out the good side of this foolery, as he calls 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 245 

It, and he is vexed with himself again for doing 
so — for secretly loving the folly he must abandon. 
Our dervise's head and heart are at open variance. 
Before he took the post of treasurer they were in 
perfect sympathy. He longs to be once more the 
dervise who was nothing but a dervise. 

He is not suited for the court. The one only 
pleasure in which he takes passionate delight — ■ 
playing chess — is made distasteful to him. Saladin 
loses enormous sums to Sittah. That would be no 
great harm, for Sittah economizes them, and the 
Sultan's lost games are the one secret bit of prof- 
itable finance carried on at court. But not only 
does Sittah pretend to win money ; she even pre- 
tends to win the game itself. All make-believe ! 
Generosity, and benevolence, and chess ! Such 
things are not to be borne by the dervise, with his 
horror of all the world's delusion. Out of tune and 
temper he is already ; at enmity with himself, and 
will be an enemy of his race if he do not return be- 
times to his free element. In a moment he is up 
and away. He takes leave of none but Nathan. 
He would prefer to take him as the companion of 
his philosophic solitude. But even in the dervise's 
renunciation of the world is a want which crippled 
it, and makes it barren of all true force and freedom. 

True self-abnegation overcomes the world, is 
not estranged from it. The Templar, the friar, 
and the dervise, unlike as they are, resemble one 
another in this — that they do not stand the test of 
true renunciation of the world. The Templar likes 
to feel melancholy. "Woman, do not make these 
palms, 'neath which I've loved to walk, grow hateful 
to me," he says to Daja. A hundred times a day the 
friar wishes himself on Tabor. And the dervise 



246 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

longingly exclaims, "Beside the Ganges only are 
there men." 

Here is renunciation of the world consisting in 
flight from it. In such a case, human love works 
in just the opposite way from the force of attraction 
in the material world : attraction diminishes as the 
distance increases, while this form of human love 
increases with the distance. It is not free except in 
the wilderness. Among men, where its proper field 
should be, it is so out of time that it might easily 
grow into its opposite. This is what the experi- 
enced Nathan fears for his friend : 

" Al-Hafi, make all haste 
To get into your wilderness again. 
I fear lest, living among men/ you'll cease 
To be a man yourself.' 1 



SALADIN AND SITTAH. 

We will now contemplate unselfishness in high 
places, above the range of ordinary human activities. 

In Saladin, we have unselfishness in its greatness, 
cramped by no limitations. At the height of power, 
he is simple and content. The whole force of un- 
affected, unconstrained self-conquest makes the free- 
dom and the strength of his soul. Hence his ability 
to govern men. 

There is nothing paltry in this great soul. His 
mind is open and receptive of all human greatness. 
Nobility, wherever found, he joyfully welcomes as 
akin to himself — the dervise's disinterestedness, 
Nathan's wisdom, Richard's heroism. There is no 
dividing wall between the -king and the beggar, the 
Mussulman and the Jew, the chivalrous Sultan and 
the chivalrous King. 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 247 

A mind so susceptible to true humanity, wherevei 
found, easily rises above prejudices and narrow 
judgments. He looks men through, and therefore 
need neither fear nor shun them. He lets every 
one take his own way. To foster and develop good 
in all its forms is a necessity to him, his vocation. 
There is something of Haroun al Raschid in our 
Sultan. The generous-minded Saladin, with his 
toleration of all forms of life and forms of faith, 
would never of himself have thought of putting to 
Nathan the trying question: "Which is the true 
religion ?" Such a question is not at all like him, 
certainly not the using it as a snare to entrap the 
Jew. It was well conceived by Lessing to make 
this trick originate with Sittah instead of Saladin. 

The Sultan, in the Italian story, did not care for 
the truth, but only for the captious question which 
was to ensnare the Jew. He is curious to see how 
the Jew will escape. He therefore was satisfied by 
a skilful evasion. Not so the Sultan of our poem, 
who sought truth itself, and was eager for the solu- 
tion of the great, human question. In a single 
word, Nathan explains the natural spring of faith, 
the same in all religions : "Why should I not be- 
lieve my fathers just as firmly as you yours ?" Re- 
ligious faith is intimately connected with domestic 
love — the altar with the hearth. This sinks into 
Saladin's soul. He is, of all men, most loving of 
his own. His faith is the faith of his fathers. This 
obstinate and illiberal adherence of each to his own 
faith brings the religions into conflict, sows discord 
among the sons with their rings, and finally brings 
them before the judge. Such is the condition of 
the world in which Saladin lives, himself a soldier 
for the faith of his fathers. This is the point he 



248 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

wants Nathan to arrive at in his stoiy. His expec- 
tation strained to the utmost, he impatiently inter- 
rupts him : 

" And now the judge ? 
I long to hear what words you give the judge. 
Go on 1" 

He hears what his enlightened mind quickly and 
joyfully understands. The contest between the 
religions lets loose all the passions, which com- 
pletely obscure all that is genuine in religion. So 
long as the sons stand up each for his own right 
with mutual hatred, all these rings are false. ' ' The 
genuine ring was lost/' "Oh, excellent!" cries 
Saladin. 

When the modest judge gives his counsel instead 
of a sentence — Let every one believe his ring the 
true one, prove the power of the stone in his ring, 
awaken the love of others by his love, then will the 
day of reconciliation come, and with it the wiser 
judge, who has no further need to be a judge — 
light breaks in upon the Sultan. 

Nathan feels he is understood. He speaks di- 
rectly to Saladin — 

" If, therefore, Saladin, you feel yourself 
That promised, wiser man — " 

And here we see the true effect of the story on 
Saladin, He is not intoxicated by this view of the 
great tendency of the age, or by the task which 
claims him ; he sees only how far he and his age 
are from the goal ; feels but his own insignificance 
in comparison with it : 

* ; I? Dust!— I? Naught! 
OGod! 

Nathan, Nathan ! 
N^pt ended are the thousand, thousand years 
Your judge foretold ; not mine to claim his seat. 
Go, go !— But be my friend." 



ESSAY OX NATHAN THE WISE. 249 

This scene between Saladin and Nathan has be- 
come a pattern which has provoked the imitation 
of dramatic poets — this idea of bringing the ruler 
of the world and the world's wise man face to face. 
The greatest imitation is the famous scene between 
Philip and Posa, in Schiller's Don Carlos — between 
the despot of the world and the citizen of the world. 
I give the scene in Nathan the preference. The 
greater the difference in the nature of the two char- 
acters, the more skill and imagination is displayed 
in their meeting. With the simplest means Lessing 
gradually produces the greatest effects ; and when 
the sympathy .between Nathan and Saladin finally 
reveals itself, and is cemented into friendship, we 
see what lay at the foundation of both characters. 
It is this that makes the effect of the whole so 
genuine and irresistible. How excellently Lessing 
has introduced the dialogue ! The Sultan, throwing 
out his question at first as on the spur of the mo- 
ment, with a sovereign's caprice, a royal dilettan- 
tism, requiring not only a direct answer to this 
most difficult and embarrassing of questions, but 
requiring it at once, as quick as possible : 

" Speak— 
Your answer ! Or a moment would you have 
To think upon it ? Good ; I grant it you. 
But quick, be quick with your reflections. " 

In every word a Sultan ! And now, impressed 
by the significance of the question, as Nathan goes 
on with his story until, at last, all the Sultan disap- 
pears, and he cries out : " I ? Dust ! — I ? Naught 1" 

This scene underwent a singular test, when, in 
March, 1842-, a Greek translation of Lessing's Na- 
than was acted in Constantinople before Greeks and 
Turks. The Turks were at first amazed that the 



25O ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

Jew should be so much at ease with the Sultan. 
But at the story of the three rings they broke out 
into shouts of applause. 

In Saladin, everything is on a large scale. Sittah 
loves him as only a sister can love such a brother. 
Her soul is fashioned after this pattern, and the 
kindred traits are unmistakable in the sister. But 
nature has diminished them into womanly propor- 
tions, and made of Sittah not only a repetition, but 
a supplement of Saladin. In his grand mode of 
thinking and feeling, Saladin is apt to overlook 
trifles. Just in these trifles does Sittah show more 
clear-sightedness, more knowledge of the world, 
more tact. Saladin cannot escape being deceived, 
embarrassed. Sittah is less often misled. Her 
precautions, her judgment, are helpful in anticipat- 
ing and relieving her brother. So in little things 
she exercises a kind of authority over Saladin, to 
which he willingly submits. The alliance with 
Richard was a favorite scheme of Saladin. Sittah 
has always laughed at his sanguine dreams. She 
knows more of the Christians and their pride. Her 
glance is keener for such things than Saladin's, and 
her spirit less noble in bearing them. She is bitter 
against that pride of religion. He counts it among 
things petty enough to be overlooked. 

Sittah's character is by no means as simple as 
Saiadin's. She is actuated by a multitude of almost 
imperceptible feminine motives. While accomplish- 
ing one noble purpose, she manages to gratify 
numerous minor interests. In this lies her cun- 
ning ; and she is never quite satisfied unless she can 
employ cunning, as is illustrated in her preparation 
for Saladin* s interview with Nathan. 

Looking at the noble side of Saladin's character, 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 25 I 

we have failed to note the imperfections which must 
be found in even so great a nature : — not those 
universal imperfections which belong to the limi- 
tations of humanity, but such as are peculiar to 
characters of this sort — natural ingredients of this 
kind of greatness. 

He has won for himself the sovereign control. 
His powers and his destiny are in perfect harmony. 
He can follow his inclinations freely, without inves- 
tigating them too closely. His native greatness of * 
mind leads him into the path of greatness. Hence 
his disinterestedness; it has no deeper source. 
Saladin could hardly resolve to do anything con- 
trary to his natural inclinations. Here ends his 
unselfishness. Generosity is his inclination, his 
passion. To check this passion would be to con- 
quer himself. A wise economy in his case would 
be a test of earnest self-sacrifice. He does not stand 
the test. He is lavish because he cannot help it. 

Before his conversation with Nathan, the Sultan is 
not conscious of any reasons for his tolerance, and 
seems never to have raised the question of the in- 
ward worth of religion. When he says, "Let me 
hear the reasons which I have not myself the time 
to find, " he is in earnest in wanting them ; at the 
same time the question betrays the most immature 
conceptions of the source and nature of human 
belief. When Nathan, in his story, makes true 
toleration rest upon deep religious experience, the 
Sultan would not have been so much startled had 
the truth not been a new one to him. 

What is wanting in this Saladin, and always must 
be wanting in characters like his, is depth of insight, 
reflection, wisdom. A nature that rests only on 
inclinations, however noble, is never sure of not 



252 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

being at moments false to itself. This Sultan m.*j 
have had his fits of despotism, his outbreaks oi 
violence, when passion mastered him. Nothing 
saved the Templar from Saladin's vengeance but his 
resemblance to Saladin's brother. Of himself he 
says: "I too, alas! have many sides, which seem 
hard to reconcile. " 



NATHAN AND RECHA. 

It is indispensable to the firm establishment of 
unselfishness and love of humanity that they should 
rest, not on transient emotions, but on true wisdom 
and experience. Disinterestedness becomes an ac- 
tual virtue only when knowledge of the world guards 
it from becoming misanthropy, and when wisdom 
shields it from the illusions of passion. So we rise 
to the height of our poem. One character stands 
before us, to which the others are but stepping- 
stones. Whatever of truth is found in the Templar's 
self-devotion and liberality of spirit, in the friar's 
humility, in the dervise's unselfishness and asceti- 
cism, in Saladin's generosity and magnanimity, is 
all united in Nathan under the control of experience 
and wisdom. 

The only character in the poem with whom 
Nathan has nothing in common is the Patriarch. 
Even Daja, looking down upon the Jew in her 
pride of Christianity, must admire him: "Who 
doubts that Nathan is honor, generosity itself?" 
All the others feel the bond of a common human- 
ity, and are irresistibly attracted towards him. "We 
must, be friends," says the Templar. "Be my 
friend!" pleads Saladin. "You are a Christian, 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 253 

Nathan ! Yes, by heaven ! you are a Christian I" 
cries the friar. He is the only one Al-Hafi wants 
to take with him to the Ganges. 

This Nathan possesses the power of the original 
ring, the art of winning hearts. He knows men ; 
and because he knows them, he can be patient with 
them. Narrowness comes from ignorance. To 
purify men, is to educate them. How can they 
be educated without dealing with each one accord- 
ing to his own nature, without changing ignorance 
into a need and a capacity ? Lessing understood 
religion to be the education of the human race, and 
from this idea, the last he bequeathed to us, he ex- 
plains the historical necessity of different forms of 
revelation and belief. 

A type of religion, in this sense, is his Nathan. 
In him, toleration is not a mere matter of inclina- 
tion and personal gratification, but of determination, 
character, moral training. Such a training is the 
ripest fruit of a mature experience. In every word 
and act of Nathan, we trace this impress of perfect 
maturity. His judgments are drawn from the ful- 
ness of experience ; his sentences are truths that he 
has lived : they flow from his heart, simple, natural, 
sure. He has made himself what he is. He has 
fought the fight of self-abnegation, and its hardest 
battles are behind him. He has been purified by 
trials. The Christians had slain his wife and sons : 
he took his revenge by becoming a father to a 
Christian child, and never spoke of his deed. 

Here we read his character. His self-sacrifice is his 
resolution. After this trial there need be no second. 
His will is not in sympathy with inclination ; it is 
not natural nobility, like Saladin's, but moral. His 
self-sacrifice has cast off all that is unreal ; it stum- 
22 



2 54 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

bles not at pride or fear ; it strays neither intc 
misanthropy nor asceticism. He who has been 
brought so near to hatred of a creed, will not arro- 
gantly condemn hatred of a creed in others. He 
who has so wrestled with himself and his passions, 
can make allowance for passions in others : the 
less he has yielded to his own, the more allowance 
he will make. Such self-conquest is the purest 
source of human knowledge and of love in the wide 
sense. 

But why did Lessing make Nathan a Jew? 

That question is always asked, and often in a 
tone of blame. "The Patriarch a Christian — and 
Nathan a Jew!" people exclaim. "In the Patri- 
arch, Lessing has gratified his hatred of Christianity ; 
in Nathan, his predilection for Judaism. In the 
Patriarch, he was representing his enemy, the Pastor 
Gotze ; in Nathan, his friend the Jewish philoso- 
pher, Moses Mendelssohn." And so the choice of 
these characters is accounted for by the prejudices 
of the poet, who, it is claimed, was in sympathy 
with everything hostile to Christianity. So must 
judgments err which start from the idea that the 
three religions are personified in the poem. 

Why is Nathan a Jew ? To answer this question 
aright, we need consider neither Lessing's friend- 
ship for Mendelssohn, nor the reaction of that time 
in favor of Judaism. We only need to understand 
the character as the poem presents it — a character 
in which toleration springs from self-renunciation, 
and is the result of an effort. It is easy to be tol- 
erant where there is no reason for being otherwise. 
The virtue of toleration is not easy — it must spring 
from conflicts. , 

Take, now, a religion by nature intolerant and 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 255 

proud, the proudest, the most oppressed of all the 
religions of the world. Imagine a man permitted 
by his religion to esteem himself the chosen of God, 
but condemned by the world, despised and rejected 
of men. If his soul yields to this twofold pressure, 
and follows the natural course of human passions, 
it must be consumed by hatred and revenge. There 
must be kindled a thirst for vengeance, so demoni 
acal, so beastly in beastly natures, that it would tear 
the pound of flesh from an enemy's heart, if only to 
bait a hook with it. Yet when these passions, 
which in their worst and lowest forms make a Shy- 
lock, are conquered by a noble soul — when tolera- 
tion is wrested from a religion at once the proudest 
and most oppressed — we have a Nathan. He will 
not now, indeed, narrowly represent his religion ; 
but toleration would not cost what it does, if he did 
not prize his religion and were not in sympathy 
with it. He still feels it to be his religion, the faith 
of his people and his fathers — the faith to which he 
is linked by a thousand indissoluble ties. He does 
not represent Judaism, but he is and remains a 
Jew — not because Judaism is a tolerant religion, 
but because it is the reverse. Who that under- 
stands his character would wish him otherwise ? 
The admiring expression of the Templar describes 
him — " What a Jew ! Who yet insists on seeming 
wholly, only Jew !" 

Lessing wished to depict self-renunciation under 
the most unfavorable conditions, and self-seeking 
under the most favorable. Where faith appears but 
as the tool of ambition, every religion, as such, is 
too good to be represented. A character like the 
Patriarch represents not religion, but egotism in- 
trenched behind religion. Such characters join 



256 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

themselves to the dominant faith of their time, what 
ever it may be. They are to be met everywhere, 
and we are far from making any one form of reli- 
gious belief responsible for the Patriarch. 

It is plain now why Lessing made his heartless 
egotist the Patriarch, and Nathan a Jew. The 
characters that he wanted to represent required it. 
That he should draw some qualities from the life, 
should trace in the Patriarch some likeness to the 
pastor of Hamburg, comes under the legitimate 
province of the dramatic poet. 

Let us return to Nathan. What he has learned 
by experience he wishes to give by education to the 
child who is to take the place of his sons. The 
fruit of this education is Recha. She is what Nathan 
has made her. A wise education forms our second 
nature out of the capacities of the first ; it does not 
destroy, but develops ; it seeks to cleanse the true 
and bring it forward into action. Thus has Nathan 
educated Recha. In her, unselfishness is second 
nature, not a hardly won virtue. What Nathan has 
worked out for himself under the most unfavorable 
circumstances is developed in Recha's soul under 
the most favorable. Nathan's virtue grows out of 
self-conquest — out of victory over the proud and op- 
pressed religion in which he w r as trained, and over 
the natural desire for revenge kindled in him by a 
hard fate. Recha's virtue from the outset merely 
obeys the voice of the tenderest of fathers. She is 
not brought up as a Jewess, but merely as Nathan's 
daughter. She knows Nathan only as her father, 
and the world only through him. In his hand her 
soul feels safe and free ; and foreign to her are all 
representations that would draw her away from him 
to another religion and another home. To every 



ESSAY OX XATHAX THE WISE. 257 

word of Nathan's her heart involuntarily opens ; 
involuntarily it closes against even* suggestion of 
Daja. She lives in her father. In him is her 
world, her religion, her home ; away from him, her 
thoughts are busy with him — her imagination follows 
him on his journey, her soul trembles at his possi- 
ble dangers ; the thought of him gives new percep- 
tions — she feels his approach, she anticipates his 
return, and her soul forsakes her body to haste to 
meet him. 

Here we have the key-note of Recha's nature. 
The impulse of self-devotion has so the force of 
nature in her that it amounts to a loss of self- 
consciousness. She loses herself in her longing — 
hangs upon the object of it with all the strength of 
a youthful, exuberant fancy — lives only for this ob- 
ject, exalted by her unbridled imagination above all 
others. Such a devotion, amounting to the giving 
up of one's own consciousness, is eccentric. In 
such a condition of the mind all sober judgment of 
things is changed into that excited fancy which 
causes visions and dreams. Now imagine this 
Recha suddenly in danger of death by fire, sud- 
denly rescued by a stranger at a moment when all 
human aid seemed hopeless. A boundless grati- 
tude takes possession of her imagination, already 
inclined to heavenly visions ; her deliverance seems 
to her a miracle of God, performed by the inter- 
vention of a guardian angel. So to her fancy the 
Templar becomes an angel. It is in the nature of 
true gratitude to ennoble the benefactor. To criti- 
cise a favor is a prelude to ingratitude. 

Nathan sees at once the only way of purging 
Recha's fancy of extravagance. Ho_w_consid£rarery 
and lovingly he. at first enters into her views, that 



■ 



258 ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 

he may afterward correct them with firmness ! With 
a father's fond flattery he first accepts her idea of an 
angelic apparition. "Recha would be worth an 
angel's visiting ; and would, in him, see naught 
more fair than he, in her." He grants her the angel 
and the miracle ; yet skilfully makes her accustomed 
to the ideas that the angel might be a man, and the 
miracle be wrought by natural means. 

" The greatest miracle of all is this : 
That true and genuine miracles become 
Of no significance.'" 

This dialogue shows us again in what faith Na- 
than lives. For him there is but one sure test of 
religion — self-renunciation ; and but one test of 
self-renunciation — the voluntary subordination of 
one's own will to others. All the powers within us 
must work together for this. The true faith, as far 
as it is possible in humanity, must be tested by the 
heart. Man cannot hold religious truth as an ex- 
ternal possession, a philosopher's stone ; it must be 
the very kernel of his being. ' ' By their fruits ye 
shall know them." Holding this view of religion, 
Nathan had never thought of putting to himself the 
question suddenly proposed to him by Saladin. " I 
pray you, tell me what belief — what law has most 
commended itself to you." The question takes 
him by surprise. It is not in his line of thought. 
It may be a snare, or it may be the expression of 
the Sultan's sincere desire for truth. In vain Nathan 
draws back, saying : ' ' Sultan, I am a Jew. " Sala- 
din presses for a decisive answer. The soliloquy in 
which he prepares his answer is perfect in its way. 
None but Lessing could have written it. It should 
be read with a full appreciation of the fact, tha* 
Lessing's punctuation marks are significant, elo- 



ESSAY ON NATHAN THE WISE. 259 

quent. Every comma, every semicolon speaks. 
Some writers use dashes to conceal a want of 
thought ; Lessing uses them when too many 
thoughts crowd into one moment ; they denote that 
silence which is most eloquent. 

Nathan is not the traditional Jew, and does not 
choose to be ; but he is and always will be a Jew. 
Why ? Perhaps this simple question is raised in 
his mind now for the first time. The answer is 
plain. It is the faith of his people and of his 
fathers, born in him with his birth, woven into all 
the history of his life, a part of himself. Abandon- 
ing his religion would be like abjuring his fathers. 
It is his father's ring. So it is, save in characters 
of exceptional strength or exceptional weakness, 
with any form of belief in which one has been 
brought up. 

The reader has, we trust, appreciated that our 
poem embodies ideas which place it beyond the re- 
quirements of merely dramatic art, and that it is 
aptly called Nathan the Wise, from its fulness of 
real wisdom. Surely this poem, if any, deserves to 
be prefaced by the motto of the old philosopher .* 
" Enter here ; for here, too, are Gods." 



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